Thursday, March 10, 2011

too many?

My greenhouse occupies 8 square feet of space in the basement, with 2 shelves, that means I have 16 square feet of seed starting area- theoretically. Currently most of the bottom level is used for storage. I plan to update the lights so that instead of only one 2x4 fixture, some day there are 4- 2x4 fluorescent fixtures, all hung on adjustable chains, 2 on each level, so I can really get intense light to get the little plants started. I don't however intend to increase the size. It's surprising really, just how many tiny plants I can get going in there. I fear that if I ever increased its size friends would stop speaking to me in the month of May for fear of having baby plants forced upon them. As it is I'm not sure what I am going to do with 20 tomato plants, an equal amount of peppers, along with the 70 or so (oops!) forget-me-nots and the 12 or so impatiens....

At this point I think my problem is more getting the proper number of each plant, rather than necessarily having too many, therefore, I decided this evening to start a few more. My parents were in town this past week, and my mom heard my plea for flowers that like shade. She found some colorful coleuses and a variety pack of impatiens, along with the marigolds that she always seems to have better luck with than I do. I also realized that I only ended up with 4 of my favorite cherry tomatoes, and since everybody else that I passed the extras off to last year had the same luck, I figured I had better start a few more.

The main shelf is full with already so I had to improvise on the lower level, and of course the kitties had to come inspect.

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