Tomato & Pepper Seed Starting | Garden Seed Journal Printable
It’s the time of year when I’m itching to garden and all I can do is start my seeds indoors. The two that I concentrate on are tomatoes and peppers, they both need more growing time than Michigan has so I get them started inside under lights about 10 weeks before our last frost.
This year I went hog wild and planted several varieties that I haven’t tried before but I also planted a few tried and true varieties that are our favorite. So far they are doing great. The germination rate has been 100% for most varieties and 90% for the rest.
All in all I have 144 tomato plants started in the house and 72 pepper plants. I’ve planted enough for my garden, my DIL’s garden, and my brothers garden. I’ve also added more raised garden beds at my house (post to come) to accommodate more growing room.
If food prices continue to rise like they currently are I’ll be glad for the harvest. I’m nearing the end of all the veggies I have from last season in the freezer so I put up just about enough to get us through. I did keep a list so I know what I need more of this years.
I plan on getting my peas and onions in the ground this week, and if I have room I’ll add carrots to the beds. It will be so nice to have a little more planting space, and any available area in the soil that’s not planted with veggies I’ll scatter a few flower seeds. It will help the garden look pretty and give me a few cut flowers to keep for myself.
If you missed my post on planting marigolds inside you can see that here, and I’m happy to report they are all up and getting their second set of leaves.
This is the first year I am keeping a garden journal. I always have a garden planner, telling me what I have planted in each box and where it’s planted but this year I decided to get a little more in depth with my plan.
I’m keeping a journal with the variety of plant, how many I planted, how many germinated, how long it took to germinate, if I put them under lights or used a heat mat, how much the seeds cost, where I purchased them from and so on. You get the idea. Now I’ll be able to determine if it’s a variety I’ll plant again next year after I see what kind of harvest I get from each type.
If you’d like to do the same I’ve already created a printable version all you have to do is download and print it. I keep mine in a 3 ring binder. It makes it easy to flip through the pages to take notes. I’m using the “Note” page to remind myself to order seed catalogs from places that are new to me or to remind myself to order a seed variety I’m out of or was unable to get this year.
GARDEN SEED JOURNAL AND NOTES DOWNLOAD
Fell free to send over the download over to your gardener friends too, it’s free so share the love. Have a great week everyone and thanks for garden chatting with me today.
