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Starting the Tomatoes! (Seed Sowing Saturday)

This week finally found me getting into some real seed starting action. The first of my seed orders came in within three days of ordering (here is my seed order for 2011) and today I started my tomatoes! Tomatoes are always the main crop in our garden and without them our garden is incomplete. Fresh from the garden tomatoes are simply a gift from heaven! We can them, turn them into sauces, make pico de galla combined with our cilantro crops, eat them plain or with a little dab of sea salt, and most importantly... make sandwiches! A turkey and tomato sandwich with mayo is a summertime favorite of mine. I know it sounds so simple but it is good! Of course the traditional BLT is pretty awesome too.

Starting tomatoes is pretty easy. I used square peat pot starting cells filled with seed starting mixture to get things off right. Before planting the seeds I moistened all the soil then added the seeds and pressed them into the soil to make good contact. After that I simply covered the seeds with soil. Now I have to wait. Once they begin to germinate I'll lift the plastic lid to allow better air circulation which will help prevent fungal diseases like damping off.



I started 'Brandywine', 'Woodle Orange' (you should Google this one with 'Orange Woodle'- Google will ask you if you meant "Orange Poodle!" I haven't seen many orange poodles, have you?), and 'Black Krim'. All heirlooms and all delicious! 

The shallots are doing OK but seem a bit spindly and may need to be moved closer to the light. So far I haven't seen any germination in my other starts but it may be too early yet.

Have you started your tomatoes yet?



To join in on Seed Sowing Saturday just link back to this post and tell us about your seed sowing experiences over the past week. Be sure to leave a link below so we can come over and visit your post! Oh, and a Tweet or a Facebook mention/like is always a good thing! Happy Seed Sowing!

This Week's Seed Sowers!

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