I have little baby tomatoes and peppers that are growing like weeds! I usually use a fan to encourage thick stems, but I forget to fan them three days in a row and they are sporting new, spindly growth!

  

It was the first time I've tried paper pots and I'm not sure I like the soggy, moist pot. I can still water from the bottom up, and it appears they aren't disintegrating too badly.. but I have put my finger through a couple just moving the trays!

I used colored straws this year to mark plants because last year when I made fancy little tabs, the permanent marker did wear off, as did the protective scotch tape covering some of my paper markers. I cut each straw differently on the end and listed them as “yellow two” or “yellow zero” depending on how many tabs I left sticking up.

Grow Table

It's that time of year when I dig out my grow lights from the shed and my little trays, all ready for baby plant containers. I have a large table setup in my living room. When spring arrives, it becomes a grow table. Two hanging florescent lights are suspended above my little potted baby plants and I raise them up and down as needed. It seems important to keep the light as close to the plants as possible. I also have a fan nearby and my baby plants get a few hours of “wind” each day. I find this makes them sturdy little plants with thick stems instead of leggy ones that look as if they have been grown in poor light and too gentle conditions. After you add the fan, you can almost see the little spindly legs on the plants thicken! The fan also helps the soil to stay more dry –important to not have wet conditions near the new plant’s base.

Every year I buy potting soil. This year, my husband outdid himself and bought me a 1300 lb. bag!