5 Yard Dash

I know what I'm doing this weekend:

5  cubic yards of compost

I also just got back from attending the MSU Horticulture Gardens plant sale where I picked up some Big Rainbow, Azoychka, and Persimmon tomatoes (only $1 per four-pack!), a Tigger melon, and an armenian cucumber. I also nabbed a few gorgeous coneflowers (in shades of yellow and orange) and some pink dwarf cosmos that were leftover from experiments from my fellow floriculture researchers.

Plant Sale at Michigan State University

I'm going to this on saturday!

I left a few open spaces in my lineup of tomatoes because I know I'll pick up a few more varieties at this sale.

Seedling Doing Really Well!

I feel like my seedlings are doing really well this year. It might be the fact that I moved my seed starting area out of the chilly basement and into the kitchen. Or it might be the soil blocks. Or maybe the brand new light bulbs. It's probably a combination of them all!

My seed starting shelf is working out great! It's a little weird having it smack dab in the middle of my kitchen, but it's also really nice being able to admire my seedlings all the time.

Foreground: some of the younger batch of tomatoes, as well as basil, eggplant, and tomatillos. Background: the cucumbers, gourds, squashes, and melons I started last weekend.

Left to Right: parsley, dill, broccoli, beets, and swiss chard.

A tray of the older tomatoes.

Another tray of older tomatoes.

I'm pretty happy with how the soil blocks have worked out. My only complaint is that some of the older blocks are starting to grow into one another at the bottom. I'm a little worried I'll have trouble prying them apart. I'm also probably going to need to transplant most of the tomatoes into bigger pots pretty soon, so using soil blocks for them may have been a waste of time. In any event, I'm amazed with how well they stay together...and it's neat being able to see the roots "air-pruning" themselves on the edges of the blocks.