Starting over

[ElizabethB]

I was so pumped about my new tomato seeds. Planted them in late January inside and had really nice starts. Then G had his knee replacement 2/8 and my poor plants were neglected and went south. Oh well. Planted more seeds Saturday. Still early enough to have an early crop. Planted more than I need. Hope to have good starts to share with my sisters, brother and mother.

Sigh I really love spring. Makes me feel so good to have soil under my nails.

[gixxerific]

Sorry to hear good luck on round 2.

I had a bad experiance this year as well hoping for a better round 2 myself

[rainbowgardener]

Sorry you had to let the first ones go. Hope the DH is doing OK now.

Tell us a little more about your seed starting set up and how you do it...

Here's mine (the pic is a couple years old but it is looking just about like that again)



tomatoes aren't as far along yet as in that picture, but the general set up and number of trays etc is the same. Pretty soon all the space under the lights will be occupied. And I currently have 4 trays of cold weather stuff going in and out. Hoping to plant this weekend if the weather cooperates and start bringing some more out to harden.

[digitS']

. . . and my poor plants were neglected and went south. . .

I have been curious if southerners used that term, ElizabethB.

Okay, I've got it: "they went to 'Heaven'" which, is nearly a synonym, right?

Steve

[ElizabethB]

Steve - Obviously I have not looked at this thread in a while - Yep - they went to plant heaven.

My second crop of starts are doing fine I just wish I had saved the first crop. I am SOO ready to get my tomatoes in the ground. With insane fluxuations in night temps my babies will stay out for several days and nights then suddenly have to be brought in again at night.

RB - nothing near as fancy as you or the other northern gardeners. I am almost . Just planted in 4" peat pots set in 4" nursery pots. Stuck them in a south facing window. Kept them moist and put them outside during the warmer days. Southern gardening really is a no brainer. Keep in mind taht since I do square foot gardening I only need a few plants to provide us with more produce than we can use. Being patient is the hardest part. Tomato plant starts are readily available. I have to fight the urge to buy starts. I will be true to my decision to grow tomatoes from seed this year. I just hate having to wait. My neighbor planted tomato starts 2 weeks ago and they are flourishing. She has flower buds while mine are still in my starter pots and will be there for several more weeks

My new plan is to start seed mid/late summer for fall planting.

[Dillbert]

as an experiment.....

once upon a time I started tomatoes 4 wks early / "just right" / 4 wks late. (same type)

the early ones got leggy leggy leggy. stripped the leaves, laid the leggy stems horizontal in a trench. they did gang busters. with the much more huger root system they out-produced everything else 2x to 3x.

when the sun & the heat hit the fan, the late starts caught up with the "just right" starts and there was no big difference in productivity.

around here the challenge is to have a red tomato by fourth of July....
we get loads of super good super early tomatoes from an Mennonite family with hoop houses - so if I wanted to "cheat" I suppose I could get them earlier as well.

[prettygurl]

I start seeds about once a month. This week will be my last batch for the indoor plants for a long time. I'm running out of room. I can't even build a hoop house because of the snow storms. (Sigh)