Seedlings

They are getting a little leggy, but other than that, I think the tomatoes are doing wonderfully! I am kind of wondering if the legginess is because I started them in non-organic soil that had added fertilizer. Much non-organic (and some organic) fertilizers just want to get your plants as big as they can be, as fast as they can. Often at the expense of the soil, and in the long run, the plants themselves. Kind of like the tortoise and the hare, slow and steady wins the race every time in my book! Next year it is back to organic or non-fertilized starter soil, and a few extra lights to help keep them compact.

The peppers are looking fine and dandy as well. I started them in the peat pots and am debating if I am going to pull one out of each pot (I put three seeds in each), let them go, or re-pot all but one. I have had them on a slow and steady diet of fish emulsion water (weaker than recommended for full size plants) I feed them about every 3rd time they get watered, so about once every week and a half.

I seem to have brought in a bug or two with the plants that I overwintered in my greenhouse box. I have been fighting a mild case of leaf miners. The chew on the insides of leaves, leaving translucent holes, with little green blobs of bug poop inside. The only real way to get rid of them is to pick the affected leaves off so the bugs can emerge and move on to another leave. So far, so good. I think I will be more careful about what I bring inside next fall though!

The forget-me-knots haven't seem to suffer much from the bugs. I think I did have them a little too close to the light, or let them get a little too dried out though, because I did have a few dried out baby leaves. Not that I can't handle losing a few (this is HALF of how many I planted) but I hope I don't have any other disease/ problems that I am mis-identifying as too dry/ too bright, and end up spreading to my garden come spring.