From petite to powerful

I've been checking my seedlings every day to see if all is well with them, so I haven't even noticed how big they grew. It's something like with kids. When you see them every day you don't realize how fast they grow until someone tells you that. Well, it was the same with me today, only that no one told me that, but I've checked the photos that I took a couple of weeks ago.

When I repotted the seedlings they only had the second set of leaves or the first set of so called 'true leaves'. Now, they tripled in size and grew the forth set of leaves! I can see that they are healthy because of their fresh green colour, but I have added a little bit of nutrients to the water while watering them today anyway as last year I was a bit late with the nutrients and they became a bit sloppy.

Let's see some of them!

I find the Turkish chillies to be the easiest to grow. They are sturdy, don't need any added nutrients and they grow so fast!

The green and red peppers seem to be happy too...

When I was repotting them I used the soil from the old pots as well. It looks like some tomato seeds didn't sprout on time, but only after I repotted everything. Now, I have a tomato seedling in a green pepper pot, but I will repot it soon as it will become bit crowdy.

I know that there is a bit of mold on top of the soil. I will fluff the soil with a chopstick and it will disappear in no time.

I can't wait to plant them outside! If the weather will continue like this I will soon start the hardening process. It means that I will place them on a balcony for a couple of hours at first, and I will prolong the time each day until they will be able to stay there overnight. At that point I will plant them in the garden.

Look at those tomato seedlings! Some of them are now more than 20 cm! I don't use grow lights, so they have a bit longer stem, but it doesn't matter as I will burry them deep. Last year I even broke a few stems while planting and they all survived anyway. They grow roots from the little hair on their stems, so even if you break them in the process there is still a chance that they will make it.

I have removed the bottom leaves today, so that the plants don't focus their energy on unnecessary leaves that I would remove anyway while planting in the green house. I keep the window open almost all day as I will not harden them because they will go in the greenhouse, but they still need to get a bit of wind and change in temperature to get used to it.

Look at them go!

Some varieties are slower grower, but it doesn't matter as they still have enough time before I plant them in the garden.

It looks like there are three stages of growth even though I planted all of them at the same time.

And another volunteer tomato seedling...

I wonder if this one and the one in the pepper pot is the same variety.

Surprisingly, after neglecting the balcony until today there is a lot of growth from the last year. I thought I harvested the onion, but it looks like a left quite a few in the container. Also, there are small bushes of parsley here and there, and I cleverly took the photo after I harvested that 😊

I think we'll use some onion for dinner tonight...

There is also a lot of lettuce seedlings. They don't look too healthy, but I really haven't watered this container since last year, so it's impressive to see that they managed to grow. I will water them so that they become stronger and replant them in the garden.

The old stalks of oregano were left after a huge storm last year, and now I can see some new growth!

Mint is coming back too...

There is also a mysterious flower bush, and I can't wait for it to bloom to find out what it is. I don't remember having something like this last year 😊

I will clean the balcony soon and put them some new herbs. This year I will plant much less there because the watering of a balcony jungle is tiring, and it also requires my attention daily which makes travelling complicated.

Happy gardening and see you next time!