After several days of waiting for our first set of seeds to germinate, we were finally rewarded with rows of tomato seedlings.  The hot peppers have begun to emerge too.  Throughout the course of the day we’ve lost a couple to curious, probing toddler fingers, and to a lazy cat who thought she had found the perfect sunny spot to lay in, directly on top of the seed tray.  Bad kitty!

Here the seeds are incubating in the oven. The light is kept on, the oven is not. Originally we had the seed tray up on top of the refrigerator, but apparently it’s not toasty enough up there. The seeds responded pretty quickly once they warmed up in the oven. Contained in this tray are “Glory” tomatoes, an indeterminate hybrid type, an assortment of hot peppers, bell pepper “Maraca Mix”, and a few Salvia “Hotline Red” flowers. I’ll probably keep the trays of different plants separate from each other next time, due to different germination rates.

Pat constructed a light station for my seedlings, one that I could lock in my bathroom, thereby avoiding any further danger of feline or toddler interference.

Here’s a bit of what’s been going on with the outdoor prep:

The plot being tilled is 25′x25′. It will have 4′x24′ beds. Soon we will be erecting a wildlife fence to keep nibblers out. I also have a whole lot more seeds, but most of them will be directly sown rather than started indoors.