Woohoo! They're Up!!!

My sprouts, I mean!

Last week, the man-candy and I planted 3 trays of gooseberries, tomatoes, and spinach all from seedlings. We’ve planted before but always from a little plant; this is our first year growing from seed.

Barely a week later, the spinach is popping up! Gorgeous little babies no bigger than a blade of grass. How exciting!! And they just pop up overnight. Yesterday morning, we counted 4 trays having any sign of sprouts (in the photo, you can see a small nubbin peeking its little head out!). Yesterday afternoon, there were at least seven. Yay! (We're still waiting on the tomatoes & gooseberries, but they have a longer growing season than the spinach.)

Even though it's Spring, we live in the mountains and our nights are still dipping into below freezing temperatures, our kitchen table looks like a newbie nursery of plant babies. We daily taking them out to be in the sun and while watering them, we speak to them as if they were our own little human babies (ok, I do this, the man-candy doesn’t.)  They come in before the sun goes down so their little plant toes don't get to cold. 

We have more seeds left to plant (we need to snag more trays) and plan to grow more lettuces, as well as other produce: zucchini, squash, cucumbers, chilis, bell peppers, etc. and even berries though everyone advises us against this (but I have faith in the man-candy’s green thumb; he’s taught me everything I know about planting.)

Last year we ended up with an overwhelming amount of tomatoes (as well as apples from our 3 trees) and are considering asking locally to do a harvest swap. Do you any of you participate in swaps or even community gardens? Or do you grow just for you/your family? And what are you growing?