The onions we seeded have started to germinate and come up in just 7 days on the heated, bedding table; and we are having a snow storm out-side. Of course that is why we enjoy gardening in the winter time, we can still get our hands in the dirt. I put a roasting pan of dirt on to cook this morning and the house smells ‘earthy’ at the moment. I’m not real sure I like that smell but I do enjoy the early fruits in the garden from starting seeds inside the house.
It was sunny and looked like Spring yesterday!
It is time to start the peppers and so I’ll have to move some of the trays of onions off the heat table. It is okay though because they are germinated enough so that a cooler table of 65 to 70 degree’s will not hurt them. I loosened the plastic cover on each of the onion trays this morning so that they are not pushing up so hard on it. We won’t take it all the way off for a few days so that we can retain moisture on the top of the dirt. The onion is seeded quite close to the top and is not covered by much soil so we need to keep the soil moist. We do not water from the top as this would re-locate the seeds that we have carefully spaced in the tray. I will water in the end between the liner and the trays again in a few days with another 1/2 quart of fertilizer water.
Now that the seeds have germinated we will use fertilizer in the water; they seem to germinate better without the hot fertilizer when we first seed them. In three weeks we can move all the onions to the outside, unheated greenhouse to harden off and continue to grow.
Hope you are enjoying the break this winter from the heat and the outside work. I am looking forward to that first bite of sweet onion.
A Plot of Onions coming up through the plastic Mulch.
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