16 March 2008

day six: sprouts



the very first seedlings to sprout are the cherry tomatoes i planted monday night. i woke up this morning to find them beginning to uncurl and poke up through the soil. made me so happy.

i worried about them not getting enough light, so ran out to get a grow lamp. i ended up with a sylvania spot-gro 60w bulb, in a reflective shop lamp that i can clip to the window sill and position where i want. i was planning to get a florescent one, but that didn't work out (long story). this one is more like a regular incandescent bulb, but it's supposed to be for plants. it gives off and eerie blue glow. i have it a little over a foot away from the plants because it seems to give off a lot of heat. i'm going into all this detail because i'm secretly hoping someone reading this has used this type of lamp for seedlings, and can give me some pointers.

i also got a couple bags of peat and some compost. i am anxious to start working it into the garden. tonight i built our second compost bin, and poked around in the first one. i tried to turn it, but didn't fully succeed. from what i could tell, things have not broken down much, which makes sense given that we started it in the fall. there's not a lot of activity in the compost bin over the winter.

i'm completely giddy, and rather wound up over this gardening thing. i had some crappy dreams last night. thinking about baby tomato plants under a hot light, and fantasizing about fluffing up dirt seemed to ease my mind.

1 comment:

Delia said...

Same thing with me. Just bough the 60w bulb for my babies. it says "highlights the beauty of indoor plants" so am quite worried it wont do the trick.
it's been raining horribly for the past three days so my seedlings are getting no sun. im very worried they wont make it )-: