Sunday, January 5, 2025

Planting In January

"To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow."  - Audrey Hepburn

I agree with Audrey.  January is usually pretty cold.  I'm writing this as I hear winds roaring outside and temperatures are set to drop to 30 degrees Fahrenheit by 6 am tomorrow morning.  This is NOT the time to be planting seeds outside.  But it is the perfect time to be planting tomatoes, peppers and eggplant for your spring garden.

That's exactly what I did Friday afternoon.  I readied two trays chock full of seed pots and pulled all of my seeds out of cold storage (freezer).  I got a five gallon bucket of fully composted wood chips that were approximately 4 years old.  The mulch had composted into a moist decomposed planting medium that I mixed (cautiously) with composted chicken litter.

I filled each seed pot with the planting soil I made and carefully labeled each seed pot.  Here you can see that laid the seed packets of peppers I planted over the seed pots.  (Datil, Shishito, Craig's Grande Jalapeno, Anaheim, Banana, Lilac Bell, Emerald Giant, and Black Egg Eggplant.)


 I did the same with tomatoes: (Tomatillos, Spoon, Big Rainbow, Creole, Cherokee Purple, Pink Brandywine, Chadwick Cherry, Black Krim)  This is when tomatoes look their prettiest.  When you are looking at the photos on the seed packets of perfect tomatoes, you kind of forget the heat in which you pick them and the stink bugs that attack them.  But right now, your tomato garden is perfect in your imagination.

I plant two seeds to a seed pot and cover with about 1/8 inch of topsoil.  Then I use a water sprayer to liberally mist the soil with water so that the water soaks in and down to the seed.  Finally, I cover the soil with a cut plastic bag.  This ensures that the soil stays moistened so that germination is encouraged.

I brought both inside to ensure the soil stays warm and moist to encourage great germination.  We'll give progress reports several times a month until its time to transplant directly in the garden.

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