You could move to the UP -- that's when most of mine ripen

It's ironic that all of you are talking about, or already have, finished your veggie gardens for the year, and I am just starting seeds for mine. Too hot at night here, the tomatoes won't set fruit for me even if they do survive all the summer blights.

Gorgeous tomatoes there, Frank! I'll hope to have some like that around Christmas, if we don't get too cold this winter.

Weedwhacker said:You could move to the UP -- that's when most of mine ripen

No thanks. Summer is much too short and winter much too long for me.

dyzzypyxxy said:It's ironic that all of you are talking about, or already have, finished your veggie gardens for the year, and I am just starting seeds for mine. Too hot at night here, the tomatoes won't set fruit for me even if they do survive all the summer blights.

Gorgeous tomatoes there, Frank! I'll hope to have some like that around Christmas, if we don't get too cold this winter.

Yup, things are different in Florida and Texas were you get to plant both a spring and fall crop of tomatoes.

My first seed flat, with tomatoes, broccoli, kale, cauliflower and a whole flat of carrots that were supposed to take 2 or 3 weeks to germinate and have jumped up in less than a week! Yikes, it's gonna be 'way too hot for these babies to go outside for a while. Most of these are for the school garden, where we try to get a harvest by the holidays, so we can make "Stone Soup".

looks good

I took about 5 still green tomatoes off the plants and sat them outside to ripen. Some are beginning to get a blush. The main reason I ended the garden is because in 9'days we will all be in Ocean City MD for a week and I wanted to get things straightened out before I left.

We are in Ocean a City MD enjoying the very nice weather and watching the waves roll in from our balcony without a thought about gardening.

And I have been traveling through the the Black Hills and Badlands of the Dakotas ... And can't wait to get back to my garden! LOL

Those seedlings looks good Elaine.

Thanks, but the weather sure needs to moderate because most of my seedlings are nearly 4in. high now.

Time to transplant, but it's still too hot!

Weedwhacker said:And I have been traveling through the the Black Hills and Badlands of the Dakotas ... And can't wait to get back to my garden! LOL

Oh fun trip!! Maybe you will have some ripe tomatoes when you arrive home.

I would to grow strawberries in my raised garden containers next year. I will buy the plants but when do they go into the ground and will I get strawberries the first year. Have no experience with these things.

Thanks

Be careful they are hard to get rid of once you plant them

Nice flats, Elaine!

But, drop those lights to within 1"-2" above the heads of your seedlings. They're getting leggy (tall & thin) cause they're stretching to reach the light!

Congrats!

Hopefully, those are not T5HO tubes. If it is that type of fixture, you will literally fry those seedlings.

drdawg said:Hopefully, those are not T5HO tubes. If it is that type of fixture, you will literally fry those seedlings.

Good point, Ken -- in my case the lights are the old T12 bulbs, which I keep very close to the seedlings.

Shoot, Sandy, you can sit the fluorescent tubes on the plants or sit the plants on the tubes. It is amazing how much fluorescent lighting has changed over the last couple of decades. When we get further along on the solarium, I will use LED lighting in the glass half, only three fixtures mounted on the center beam to illuminate 250 sf. of floor space.

drdawg said:Shoot, Sandy, you can sit the fluorescent tubes on the plants or sit the plants on the tubes.

Yes, the advances in lighting are truly amazing! For now, I just start seedlings under the lights for a relatively short time, them move them to the greenhouse (and from there to the garden). When I get my big commercial marijuana-growing operation started I'll definitely opt for the newer-type lights, though!