My tomato plants are doing very well.  They started out terribly slow.  After the sprouts emerged, it seemed to take forever for real leaves to appear.  It occurred to me that a lack of heat may be the cause for this, so I took my sprouts and put them in an empty cheese-ball barrel, which served as a mini greenhouse.  Bingo- the leaves emerged, and I was able to pot up my seedlings.

The seedlings went back into the barrel and have been growing like gangbusters.  Today I had to take them out of the barrel, and I added supports to two of the plants.

Tomorrow I will trek out to the shed and see if I can find some slightly bigger pots.  They would like to be potted up I think.   The ones that I added supports to were leaning up against the sides of the barrel- with the barrel removed, they kind of want to flop over.  If I can put them in bigger pots, I can bury those stems a good four more inches.

It’s pretty exciting to see the growth on these.

In other news, today I went through my seeds.  I have 31 varieties of tomato seed to pick and choose from this year.  It will be a task to pick and choose- I have a few for certain that I want, but other than that, I will see which way the wind blows.  Of those 31 varieties, 2 I don’t care for, and 3 my brother is starting, so that reduces my total to 26 varieties.

I went through my Baker Creek catalog with my seeds today to really see what I had, and discovered that one of my favorite varieties from years past was not in this years catalog.  German Red Strawberry is missing from the red varieties of tomato, so that is one that I will be growing for absolute certain.  I will need to save seed from that one, because it is one of my favorites, and I don’t want to lose it, or not be able to find it anywhere.

Peppers and tomatoes are on my mind, as the seeds will need to be started in March and the beginning of April.  Everything else I will direct sow this year.  We will be moving during this time period, and the less plants we move, the better.   I think I have ordered everything I am going to order this year.  In the weeks to come I am hoping to make a stop by Steins to pick up random seeds that I am missing.

This year I will also be purchasing my herbs from Steins as plants.  Except maybe parsley, that one did well for me from seed.

In the weeks to come, I want to help out my fellow Wisconsin gardeners with some tips from years past.  What works here and what doesn’t seem to work- or hasn’t for me at least.  Stay tuned.  Gardening is on the brain, and I’m happy to be back.