Last week I sowed my last batch of seeds for the season. Now I just have to nurture all my seedlings for a couple of weeks until the weather warms up.
Some of the plants are already rarin’-to-go like this robust flat of ‘Lady in Red’ salvias:
My ‘Santa Cruz Sunset’ begonias are also looking good:
These zinnias and marigolds are still pretty small, but I only started them 2 weeks ago. They’ll catch up quickly:
And I’ve already transplanted my tomatoes into bigger pots so they can develop nice root systems:
When my favorite garden center closed a couple of years ago I couldn’t find verbena bonariensis plants anymore, so I decided to grow my own from seed. Unfortunately I haven’t quite got the hang of it. These plants were started on February 16th:
They had a very slow start last year, too, and I never took the time to read up on what I could do to get them growing a little faster. I started them at the recommended time, but I wonder if they need less water or more warmth. Hopefully once they are outside getting hardened off, the sun will do its magic.
For the next couple of weeks I will doing a lot of watering and fertilizing and sorting. If the weather cooperates (none of this snow-shower business like we had last week), I will bring all of the flats out of the basement sometime during the second week of May. They’ll spend their nights on our screen porch which is still covered with winter plastic. During the day I’ll put the flats outside in these pop-up greenhouses:
The greenhouses come with shade cloths to protect the tender seedlings from the sun. I will increase the amount of sun they get each day for a week to 10 days.
Weather-permitting I will start planting my seedlings in the garden during the third week of May. Last year we had a very cool spring and I didn’t stick anything in the ground until Memorial Day weekend.
By July, all the work will be worth it because my flowerbeds should look something like this:
