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ralleia

Transplanted about one hundred seedlings yesterday!

ralleia
12 years ago

Tomato seeds were planted Jan 23 with tomatoman's dense-seeding method and transplanted into individual cells or pots yesterday. Looking good and in great anticipation of the next season!

I couldn't have all the lights on in this photo (the light washes out the photo, plus I'm giving the plants a day or two to recover from surgery...)

Seedlings were planted all the way up to the leaves to allow roots to form along the buried stems.

Comments (6)

  • behlgarden
    12 years ago

    Nice, I am wondering what are you using for tags? and how did you get tht writing on it?

  • ralleia
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I actually went all-out and bought a case of 1000 plant labels, then used a Brother labelmaker to print labels to stick to them.

    In previous years I've tried stickers written with Sharpie or pencil, but the stickers would fall off over the weeks or the writing would fade, and then I wouldn't be able to tell what many of the plants were.

    This time I'm really trying to keep track (though by the question mark after those two "Old German" tags you can tell that I got distracted and didn't entirely succeed!)

  • laccanvas
    12 years ago

    beautiful.

    what potting mix is it?

  • ralleia
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    The mix is "Ultimate Potting Mix" by ferti*lome, mainly because my nearest nursery stocks it in 50 dry quart bags. It does a good job for my seedlings and container plants. The ingredients are just peat moss, perlite, starter charge, limestone, and a wetting agent.

  • KCKook
    12 years ago

    I have to ask - WHY if you're in Omaha are you starting so early? Do you have a greenhouse or such?
    I'm in KC and while I have access to a hoophouse I'm still not starting seed yet even if I'm setting up for it in my kitchen!

  • ralleia
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I do have a good-sized double-layered hoophouse, though even before I had that I still started tomatoes quite early, transplanting out under wall-o-waters. One pre-hoophouse year I had ripe 'Early Girl' tomatoes by the end of May.

    In retrospect though I might should've held off the bulk of the planting until this month, which would have had the later-planted seedlings at about six weeks for giving away to people without gardening structures around our frost-free date of ~April 15. But we'll see how the Nebraska weather looks then. I've only been doing seedlings for other people for a few years, so I'm still working out all the kinks.

    The Siberia and Wisconsin 55's, plus the ones for my own family's consumption get seeded early though, and go into the hoophouse (or under water cloches) well in advance of the frost-free date. Before too long they'll likely be living outside, too, in the hoophouse or in the 4' x 8' heavy-duty cold frame supplemented with a seedling heat mat.