Control, Out of

The tomatoes were all starting to get their second or third set of leaves, so I decided to repot them in something a bit bigger.  Then, since I had extra soil out, I started two small applesauce containers of cosmos.  And two larger containers with heirloom tomato seeds I got from the Master Gardener. At this point my kitchen was covered not only with loose dirt, but with pots of dirt that I couldn't just wipe up and throw in the compost bin because they were there intentionally, to grow things.  Bigger things than before. And that, of course, meant I was over capacity of the grow light.

I was pretty well at capacity before I upsized, so I'm not quite sure how I was planning on managing the rest of the spring indoor growing season.

Somewhere in the haze of vermiculite, I apparently decided to upgrade my lighting system.  Before I knew it (a day later) I had purchased the cheapest shop light the Home Depot had, two bulbs, and some chain to hang it down from the ceiling.  This gardening thing might not be cheaper than my CSA after all...

Hopefully my upsized plants will be very happy in their new homes with the new light. 

Due to the weird mold stuff, I decided to cut off the toilet paper roll instead of planting the whole thing together.  There was still some mold under the roll, but it was an amount that I'm much more comfortable with, and I think the tomatoes will be able to handle the stress on the roots.  I planted them up to the seed leaves, so they'll have a little less than two inches of stalk buried to grow roots from, in addition to the old ones. 

Outside I'm gearing up for spring as well.  Technically it's on Tuesday, but I'm not holding my breath on that one here in Seattle.  My new beds have their driftwood border, and I even got some transplants in this week when it wasn't raining too hard (two colors of mums, shasta daisies, and daylillies from the Master Gardener's garden).

This area will get sunflowers, cosmos, zinnias, poppies, snapdragons, and nasturtiums, if I can get any of them to grow from seed.  We'll be hoppin' with bees this summer! That's the hope, at least, so my veggies all get pollinated and I can have nice flower arrangements inside all season.

The side bed will eventually be the home of our runner beans, maybe a zucchini, and more sunflowers.  Can you tell what flower this house likes the best?