It’s now two weeks since the seeds were planted. Most everything is coming along well. With the exception of the flower plants, enough seedlings of each vegetable have sprouted for later transplant, and in many cases there are extras.

Here’s the brassica, along with eight Waltham Butternut squash plants:

The King of the North peppers along with the Grape, Grandma Mary and Jetstar tomatoes are doing well, as are the Gaudi eggplants.

The tray with the Mammoth sunflowers, squashes and herbs will have to be redistributed across other trays soon, as the height differences widen. Although the lights can be elevated on one end or the other, I’ve found the seedlings do better when grouped according to size.

Germinating the various flowers is again presenting some challenges this year. While the nasturtiums came up quickly and vigorously, the marigolds and pansies didn’t not. I’m thinking that issue may have been due to the age of the seeds, or possibly how they were planted in the cups. Regardless, after doing some more research into the best way to propagate those flowers, I picked up some new seed packets and added a new tray to the mix with 23 marigold and 12 pansy seedlings. I like to have the marigolds and nasturtiums out in the raised beds with the veggies, and also a few around the patio and deck in planters. The petunias are doing well, and it won’t be too long before I transplant those seedlings into their final destination, hanging pots for the front of the house.

All in all, everything is going well, and the plants should start to really take off over the next ten days. The focus from here on in is to keep things watered, but not too much!