Spring is here (maybe)

I think spring is here now.  At least its here enough that I think I can plant my first seeds.  Today was great at 20 degrees.  I saw that southern alberta got blasted with a big snow storm yesterday.  Last weekend we had some really bad frozen rain/snow but I hope that is it for the year.
The last two years I have planted carrots, lettuce, and spinach in the fall just before snow(late Octoberish).  This worked relatively well because I had some things germinate when the ground was still too wet to work in early May.  Overall probably half of the seeds germinated.  I have tried peas but this doesn't seem to work.   With the lack of rain last year and snowfall this year there is no problem with wet soil for the most part.  This fall I didn't get around to getting seeds in the ground so I probably won't have things up as early unless we get a really nice spring.
Anyways, lets forget about what I didn't do last year and focus on today.  II put in a few feet of Mesclun and a few feet of spinach under my small hoop greenhouse.  This weekend I will plant some carrots and try to plant more lettuce/spinach every week.

Lots of Marigolds

Yesterday I planted 60 marigolds from last year's seeds(or maybe they are 2 years old).  I just found them sitting in the laundry room when I was cleaning up.  We will see if the germinate..

more Tomato seeds

More tomotoes seeded

• 6 Golden Girl
• 4 Sub Arctic Plenty
• 12 Roma
• 8 Sugary F1 Hybrid

Seeding Marigolds

Today I picked up a few seed packs of Marigolds and planted some.

• 19 Naughty, germinated March 23
• 9 Zenith Mixed, germinated March 23

Again, more tomatos seeded

I picked up some more seeds from salisbury greenhouse today.
I was able to find the Sugary F1 Hybrids and some "Manitoba" which are supposed to be good for the prairies.

• 9 Sugary F1 Hybrid 
• 10 Manitoba

More Tomato Seeds

All my other bedding plants that I planted earlier this winter seemed to have pretty good germination.  Unfortunately the tomatoes and some others appear to be suffering from damping off disease.  
Tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables so I figure seeds are cheap so I should just plant a lot of seedlings to handle the possibility of a high fallout.
Tonight I planted a few more small trays

• 9 roma - 2 germinated March 21
• 9 Sungella - germinated March 22
• 7 Golden girl - germinated March 22
• 2 Sugary F1 Hybrid - germinated March 22

Last year our family's favorite variety was Sugary F1 Hybrid.  It looks like I ran out of seeds tonight so I need to go to greenhouse asap to make sure I can procure some more.

Planting more tomatoes

Tonight I planted a few more tomato seeds.  I think I am still a bit early but I have lots of seeds so its better to have too many plants come spring then not enough.  At this point I am thinking about building a greenhouse but who knows if it will happen in time.
I planted :

• 3 Golden Girl -germinated March 20
• 3 Roma VF -germinated March 20
• 4 Sugary F1 Hybrid - germinated March 22
• 4 Sungella- germinated March 21

One seed of the Sugary F1 Hybrid that I planted last weekend has germinated.  It does not look healthy I am thinking they got hit by damping off.  I have been putting the trays inside of ziplock bags.  Looks like I need to get some air circulating and get some fungicide.

First Planting of Tomatoes

Last year(2009) I planted the following varieties on March 28:

• Sugary F1 Hybrid
• Sub Arctic Plenty
• Early Girl Hybrid
• Tiny Tim

If I recall, I think this was a bit late but I ended up with a reasonable crop that matured soon enough.

I decided that I should plant a few tomatoes a little early.  I will plant every weekend until the end of March to spread things out a bit and to ensure I have good germination seeing as some of my seeds are several years old.
 
Today I planted 4 plants of Sugary F1 Hybrid.  Last year was the first year planting this variety and it was our family's favourite.  This produces a cherry sized tomatoe of reddish pink color but with oval shaped fruites slightly pointed at the blossom end. 
 
I am going to wait 1 week before I plant other varieties.