Greening up - Inside and out

This is what I've been longing for - new sprouts! Some of the peppers I planted inside last Sunday sprouted today, and a couple days ago I discovered some more of my wintersown seeds had sprung up. What a genuine delight to see the beautiful, fragile babies lift their heads up from the soil in search of the sun.

I planted 10 varieties of pepper seeds last weekend - all sweet but one. Today the lone hot pepper seedlings, named Tam Jalapeno, a mildly hot pepper, peeked out of the soil. They were soon joined by a sweet pepper named simply Orange Bell. I wasn't expecting to see any sprouts for a couple mored days at least, based on last year, but then, I've changed some of my technique this year and added new varieties. So I was running around installing fluorescent lights on the wood shelving and making up a batch of tonic to prevent damping-off disease.

Outdoors the cauliflower and broccoli are still doing well - and it STILL amazes me that they are surviving and actually have even grown a little, albeit slowly. I don't know that it helps, but I cover their containers nightly with old flannel sheets since the temps still go down as low as 15 degrees sometimes. I first became aware my wintersown Poppies had sprouted on Thursday, and today there are twice as many and those that were already up have doubled in size. This wintersowing is amazing! This method is going to allow me to raise dozens more seedlings than I could have done indoors, and save me a big chunk of change at the nursery.