New things.

Spring is the time of year when new things spring up - and it is fun to be part of this. Case in point number one:

[caption id="attachment_2333" align="alignnone" width="640"] Basil seeds, sprouting. Yay basil! (The basil is not called Ecuador Purple, by the way. That's the chili plant seeds in the other half of the saucer.


And what would basil be without tomatoes? Boring, right? So, case in point number two:

[caption id="attachment_2332" align="alignnone" width="640"] Tomato seedlings, fresh out of the soil. Two different varieties in the two saucer halves - Benarys Gartenfreude is the German name of Gardener's Delight, which are small, sweet cherry tomatoes.


Last year was not a very good one for tomatoes here, and I'm really hoping this year will be better. Now while the seedlings grow there's a few weeks of time left to get the garden beds outside into a semblance of order, and (which is the most important thing this year) apply some fertiliser, as they are all pretty much emptied out of plant nutrients, judging from how things grew (or did not grow) last year.

For the tomato seedlings, though, there are interesting times ahead... a few years ago, when the seedlings had just sprouted their first pair of real leaves, I accidentally forgot to water them before leaving for the whole day. The seedlings stood in the wintergarden, and the day was sunny, so of course it became really, really hot in there. The result? I came home to all of the seedlings lying flat on the dry soil, looking very sad and dehydrated. I did the obvious then and flooded them with water, hoping for the best - and the best certainly happened: almost all of the plants recovered. The drought did have an ongoing effect, though, as they all developed very thick, solid stems and a good root system, possibly in an effort to get and store more water for the future.

So from that time onward, I give the little plants an intentional drought when they are in the first-real-leaves stage, resulting in strong plants with strong, sturdy stems. At least that's what I get. I have no idea whether they'd turn out the same without the dry streak, but since I've been happy with the results with it, I'll just stick with the system. If you do something similar, or if you try this at home, I'd love to hear about your results!