A living room jungle

These enthusiastic onions under supplemental light will get planted out in March. (This flat includes green onions, walla walla onions, shallots and leeks)

Our starts are doing well.  We now have two shelves filled with plants which just keep on growing.  I have begun to acclimate a few hardy plants such as lettuce and leeks.  They will spend part of the day outside under a plastic dome.  After about a week where the outdoor time is increased every day, they will be ready to plant outside.  This is called “hardening off” the plants.

Tomatoes and Basil plants nearing 6 inches tall.

As for the less than hardy plants such as tomatoes and peppers, they keep on growing indoors too.  My largest tomato plants are about 8 inches tall, as they approach two months old.  I think that they will need to be replanted in larger containers atleast once before they can go outside for good.  Although it pains me to admit a mistake, January 1 is clearly too early to start your tomatoes.  They will probably be fine if I transplant them into a larger container before they get root bound, but they will be extremely large by May.  I am curious to see how much more production I get with extremely established starts like this.

Sage develops it’s characteristic crinkly leaves within a month. (left)  Peppers germinate and grow slowly but surely.  They might benefit from supplemental heat. (right)