If I Plant it, it Will Grow – Cultivating Patience

As a society in general we spend our lives waiting, and in effect “wishing our lives away” …waiting for the weekend, waiting for vacation, waiting for our birthdays or holidays and the list goes on and on.  We don’t focus enough on the present moments in life and get impatient waiting for things to happen or events to occur.  I often find myself guilty of this and catch myself thinking “I can’t wait until my seeds come up, I can’t wait until my plants get bigger, I can’t wait until my tomatoes form, I can’t wait until I can pick and eat my tomatoes”.  Gardening is a great teacher and cultivator of patience.  It teaches us that in due time we will be rewarded by our patience when we take that first bite of a delicious sun ripened tomato or make a salad from lettuce just picked out of the garden.  Instead of spending our lives waiting and becoming impatient, why not appreciate and enjoy each moment, being still and observing all that is good in that very moment.

Growing tomatoes from seeds

to

seedlings

… to the garden.

Growing Tomatoes From Seed For the First Time – What I learned:

I started a variety of heirloom tomatoes from seed for the first time this year.  It still amazes me that I took a tiny seed, planted it and look what I have now!  Nature is quite simply amazing!.

Besides cultivating patience, I have learned things that I will do differently next year.  I started my tomatoes too early (March 10^th).

Our last frost date here in Ohio is May 21^st.  Next year I plan to start my seeds inside the last week of March or the first week of April.  They grew so fast!!  I will also have a fan circulating around the tomato plants while they are growing under the lights.  This will encourage the tomatoes to develop thicker, stronger stems.  I will also be sure to keep the tomato plants 1-2 inches from the light.  I had tomato plants this year growing in different heights, and the tomatoes that were furthest away from the light grew leggy as they had to reach higher to grow to the light.  All is not lost if your tomato plants are too leggy!  I had quite a few like that this season and I planted them as deep as I could go up to the first set of leaves.

Soon … my patience will be rewarded and I will be enjoying tomatoes from my garden.  I am growing 20 tomato plants this season and plan to can salsa, sauce and enjoy many Caprese salads!

In addition to vegetables gardens I also enjoy several flower gardens throughout my yard:

Happy Gardening and remember to enjoy the moments in life!

If I Plant It, It Will Grow – Growing Tomatoes From Seed and Building More Square Foot Gardens!

“If I Plant it, it will grow”.

This year I am doing something I’ve never done before – start tomatoes from seeds inside!  I saved seeds from my heirloom tomatoes last year and I also purchased several different heirloom varieties from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (their catalog is breathtaking!).  I disinfected my containers with a solution of water and bleach, moistened my seed starting mix and planted 20 tomato plants.  All went well, except for one mistake!  It is always a good idea to read through all instructions first instead of going step by step.  I only wanted 20 tomato plants in my garden.  I followed the instructions to plant 2-3 seeds per container thinking I would just cut away the tomatoes that looked to be the weaker seedling.  Well, that is not what followed in the instructions … it told me that once the “true leaves” of the tomato appear to transplant each of the tomatoes into a 4 inch pot!  Yikes!!  That would mean I’d have 60+ tomato plants (all my seeds germinated)!  I will transplant more than 20 and give some away to friends and plant less next year.  

Tim built me shelves for my plants and I bought double light fluorescent light fixtures for my plants.  The tomatoes germinated in 7 days, with my seeds that I saved germinating first!  They are thriving under the light which I leave on approximately 16 hours per day. It is fun to watch them grow and now will be ready to transplant as the first true leaves have emerged.

Tomatoes transplanted after first true leaves

I’m hoping for tomatoes like I had last year!  Grow baby grow!

It has been almost 1 month since I planted the tomato seeds and they are thriving!

Tomatoes not quite a month old!

This weekend I purchased two more square foot cedar bed kits at Home Depot (they were on sale) and added them to the existing 4×4 bed and look what we came up with!  Now I will have plenty of gardening room to plant everything I love.

Spring is really taking its time here in NE Ohio.  I looked at pictures at the same time last year (check it out here and learn more about square foot gardening) and all the leaves on the bushes and trees were out fully  by now!  I can hardly wait to start planting outside … but I think I’ll have to patient and wait a few more weeks.

Happy gardening!