Starting the Garden in January

Early January is cold - even in the deep south - but it is time to get the tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant growing.  On January 3rd, I filled my little seed pots with seed starting medium and began planting.  I generally plant two seeds per compartment.  Usually, I'll have close to 100% germination and I'll simply separate the two seedlings and re-pot each individual plant into a larger cup so they don't get root-bound.

After all the seeds are planted, I cover them with about 1/8 inch of seed starting mix and use a sprayer to moisten the soil.  This will make the seeds swell and they'll begin their transformation from a dead seed into a growing plant.  As many times as I've seen it, the way the seed transforms into life is a true miracle from God to me.

Now obviously seeds don't need light until they sprout and begin getting leaves.  Until such time, I bring the containers inside and cover tightly with a plastic bag.  This keeps the soil warm, but most importantly, retains soil moisture so the seeds will swell and begin doing their thing.

In less than a week, we have seedlings springing forth!  They now want light and they jump out of the ground to get it.  You have to be careful or they'll get 'leggy.'  I take the shop light inside from where it normally hangs over my workbench and I position it above the tiny seedlings, propped up by some canned goods.  The grow light has a special fluorescent bulb for growing plants in it.  It gives off a pinkish-colored light.  My growing area is in the utility room above the cabinets.  It stays warm up there and the plants seem to like it.  I keep spraying the seedlings and keeping the soil moist so they plants are never in stress.

The seedlings all germinate at different times.  First the tomatoes, then the peppers, and then the eggplant.  I move them from where I have them sitting in the foyer to the utility room as soon as they sprout.

After about two and a half weeks, the tomatoes all have their true leaves and are growing vigorously.  I have to be real methodical in my watering as the soil dries out fast in the little seed pots.  Probably this Sunday I'll separate and re-pot them into bigger cups that will give their roots room to stretch out.

They are some healthy little plants right now.  Usually after I re-pot them, I'll water them with some diluted fish emulsion.  This gives them a little fertilizer and gives them a nice, healthy color.  We want them to be at their very best when we put them in the ground.  We still have a ways to go, though!

I almost forgot to show you.  As I said, peppers germinate a lot more slowly than tomatoes.  Here are the seed pots of pepper plants.  They are just getting started, but they look pretty good.

Unfortunately, everything doesn't look good.  These are the remaining seed pots in the foyer.  They haven't sprouted yet and if they don't soon, I'll give up on them.

As I was going through my inventory of seeds, I ran across seeds that I had saved from various open pollinated varieties back in 2012 - 2014.  Yes, they are old seed, but I wanted to see which seed I should keep and which I should remove from inventory.  Now, I know!

Even though it is too cold to do much garden prep outside, there's still some gardening to do inside.  And that is a good thing, indeed.