The little tomato plants have made it home and are lined up, sweetly, on my porch. They get taller by the day!

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Last Friday I got an email from Dave over at the Horticulture Center. He said that the baby tomatoes were ready to be repotted into larger, 4 inch pots. This is the part where I explain how crazy and busy everything has been, but I know you all have heard it so you can fill in the details. Needless to say it was about three days later than I wanted it to be before I could square off a block of time that I thought would be sufficient (how long does it take to report 85 tomato plants?!) and that also fit in his schedule.
When I got over there the above picture was what I found. The were in great shape. We didn't have a 100% germination rate but we got darn close. Most of the plants germinated four of the five seeds. Many did all five. We had one particular variety that only germinated one of the five seeds and I left it with Dave knowing he had a much better chance of success with it.

I got to planting. In an effort to streamline the whole process I decided to go with numbering the pots and working from a key. Of course this only works if you have been diligent about keeping the key in a safe place. So far so good, but it's not my strong suit. I quickly fell into a routine and with the aid of some good music (NeverShoutNever!) it wasn't long before I was cruising through the pots and dirt. I tell you what, large scale potting works best when you have a huge horticulture center and big tables, tons of pots, dirt, portable water sprayer, and rolls of labels. Yeah, I know, I don't normally have that stuff either. I've been found on the front porch with a bag of dirt, a recycled solo cup and a spoon!

I did leave Dave one of each of the plants labeled with their actual names. I would never have space to plant all of them anyway and if I have massive garden failure I still have the chance of having a tomato taste test by the end of the summer.
After about an hour of packing, planting, pressing, and labeling pot after pot I got to the end of my tray of seedlings. I potted even the littlest, sickliest looking ones (especially them). They are remarkably different even at this state. They are going to live on my front porch for another couple of weeks. Then off to wherever they will live out their tomato destinies. I will keep you posted.

Remembrance flowers for Memorial Day. A lovely spring rain all day today. Threw open all the windows and doors and really enjoyed it.

Gardeners, plant and nature lovers can join in every Sunday. Visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Whew! The last week or so has been a whirlwind. The semester has just wrapped up, thankfully. A new semester is getting underway. I spent much of last week and a pretty interesting nerd-conference. Add to that a terrible head cold and several days of torrential downpour and you kind of get a picture of what I've been up too this past week.

I wasn't able to get back over to the Horticulture Center before I left for the conference . . . . or before I had to sit down and get my grades submitted, but later that day (after I drove an hour to drop off my computer for repairs, did I mention the broken computer?) I dropped by to see how they were doing.

They were all done in the magic box and sitting in the greenhouse with quite a few other flats of plants. Overall our germination rate was excellent and the few that didn't come up still have a chance of making it. The next step will be to move them to larger pots once they have put out their third set of leaves. I'm stoked!

I've got a pumpkin problem. Now before you go getting all on my case, I did NOT plant another Atlantic Giant Pumpkin. This time I settled on a large pumpkin that was a bit smaller called a Big Max. It was Cooper who brought me the seed back and I looked down to see the smiling toddler that I had looked upon with such disdain three years ago. I heaved a sigh. "All right." I told him. And he proudly carried it to the counter so that we could "Pay our moneys."

So, as I was starting our little seed tray, it didn't concern me too much, and I settled on three plants to start. A couple of days went by and they pumpkins didn't cross my mind at all. Until yesterday morning when I stopped and looked down at the little seed pod. Oh crap. I gently lifted it out from the tray and yes, there it was, a thick furry root already stretching out, looking for world domination. Well, there's no going back now. We're all in this together right?