Seedlings

Two-week update on the seedlings with pictures.  All are up and growing.  Two pods didn't sprout and that's ok 'cause it was in the plan.  Looking at the picture below, front to back the seedlings are:  Broccoli, Emerald Giant Bell Pepper, Marconi Pepper (sweet pepper), Corno Di Toro Rosso Pepper (sweet/spicy), Fengyuan Purple Eggplant (long asian variety), Chocolate Stripes tomato (purple heirloom noted for taste), and my fantastic Traveler tomato (Arkansas hybrid).  They'll go out in the SWCs between first and second week of April.  Next weekend, I'll plant the other seed pods with squash and melons.

Here's my ghetto seed-starting setup.  As stated previously, it was built from leftover deck wood.  I bought 2 36-cell seed-starting kits from Lowes, a 97-cent thermometer, and one "grow" tube for the shop light I had lying around.  I think the tube was $9.00 which is why I only bought one.  the other side is a standard fluorescent tube.  The silver backing you see is a Mylar blanket.  I bought them some time back to cover the SWCs instead of plastic bags.  I think i paid $35 or so for 50 of them.  I'm using one to reflect the light back onto the seedlings.  By-the-way, Mylar is a material similar to foil only it's plastic-feeling and pretty darned strong for how thin it is.  It was supposedly developed for use in NASA and is often used in the Survival community as an emergency blanket as it's reflective properties reflect light and heat extremely well.