Tomatoes!

So I have never tried to grow my own tomatoes since I've always been told they are hard to grow from seed. But then I went to a local seed swap several months ago and there was a guy there giving out tomato seeds. I asked him about what I'd heard, and he insisted it was easy to grow tomatoes from seeds as long as you kept them in bright light. So I took some seeds and decided to try!


I planted the five seeds he gave me about two months ago (I forgot to date the label marker) and lo and behold, they are growing!

This is them now. Four of the seeds sprouted, one was small so I thinned that and then sepparated the other three to their own pots. They have already suffered through getting sunburned (go figure, who knew it could happen in Seattle) and my son plucking off several leaves, but they are truckin' on nicely!

I will also stop here and mention (I may have before) that I did buy a grow light ($8 from Home Depot) that I have been starting all my seeds under. I think that makes a big difference since I have extremely limited sunny window sill space.


Then my mom got some tomato seeds that a store was getting rid of since they are a year old, and I decided to try more tomatoes.

On April 3rd I started a few to see how they'd germinate and here they are now:

The seeds germinated quite well, I actually had almost all the seeds sprout and I had to thin the seedlings (something I hate doing, but I'm getting better at doing it). So then on April 14th I planted half a flat of tomato seeds. They all sprouted beautifully and I finally just thinned them today since they all are growing a true set of leaves:

I'm pretty excited to see how they do the rest of the year. Last year most of our tomatoes got what we think was blight (from the early spring rains they were subjected to), so this year we are hoping to make a little clear plastic overhang that will protect the tomatoes from getting wet but allow the sun to come through. I also plan on training all my tomatoes to grow up twine, and luckily all my tomatoes are indeterminate so they should work well.


I did just discover the difference between the kinds of tomato plants and even my mom didn't know!

Indeterminate (the most common kind) continue to grow and produce fruit until the frost kills them.

Determinate (called "bush" tomatoes) grow to a certain size, produce a crop of fruit, and then die back.


I realized last year I think I bought a bunch of bush tomatoes and then was trying to prune them to grow up twine while the poor things just wanted to stop growing and produce a crop of tomatoes! That may explain why several of my tomatoes didn't produce very well.

My First Lasagna Garden Bed!

Today I put together my very first Lasagna garden bed!

I used old fence boards to make a small, 5 x 4 foot grow box which will be one of six that will hold most of the veggies I am planning to grow this year. I have some leeks I started in the house I would like to get outside, so I am trying to throw together a grow box to put them in!

I put cardboard on the bottom, then paper bedding from my gerbils, then did a layers of peat moss, grass clippings, peat moss, dried leaves, green leaves, grass clippings, and a final thick layer of peat moss.

The box is still not as full as I would like it to be, but I'm short on things to fill it with right now, and since with leeks you "hill up" around them as they grow to promote a longer white part, I figure it will work to plant them in the box as it is now and then I can add more later.

I plan on getting some hay/horse manure from my parents house to help fill my boxes.