radishes germinated, eggplant transplanted, tomatoes and herbs in the sun

The Champion radishes first poked up above ground on Friday, right in their three-to-six day window.



I really like their little heart-shaped leaves.  Now they have 21-24 days until they can be harvested, and I´m supposed to plant a new crop of them every two weeks to have a constant supply.

Last Thursday was an absolutely gorgeous spring day, and so I decided to transplant the rest of the eggplant outside.  They will probably stay in these containers until they are planted in the garden.



My current totals are: 16 black, 17 snowy white, and 10 italian white.  Suffice to say, I think we´re going to have a ton of eggplant this year.

Since we´ve had a few warm sunny days in a row now, I´ve started bringing some of the staked tomato plants and herbs outside during the day.

Tomato plants along a south-facing wall:

Bucket of herbs:

These plants have been in the sun room living off whatever direct sun that comes through the south-facing windows.  I think this is probably sufficient on sunny days, but when it´s consistently cloudy, they really start to droop.  They´ve taken to the outside conditions pretty well for the most part.   Only one tomato plant has shown any signs of photo-bleaching:

So this Fox cherry is going to stay inside for today and recover.

I also planted a Crimson Sprinter tomato plant in the ground outside.

This plant has been nothing but unlucky.  During the second tomato transplant, I accidentally placed it too close to a space heater and it wilted.  I didn´t want to give up on it, but it quickly fell behind in growth compared to the other tomato plants, and then it wasn´t getting as much light in the greenhouse since it was so much shorter.  So it´s been living outside the greenhouse in the sunroom.  I went ahead and planted it in the ground even though it´s still really early because it´s short enough that I can easily cover it on cool nights.  True to form, this plant had been in the ground all of five minutes, when the wind blew really hard and snapped off the tallest stem.  I´m still not giving up on it, though.  I want to see if I can get it to produce a tomato after all it´s been through.

herb update

About a month ago, I ordered some more herb seeds, this time from Renee's Garden.  The Greek oregano, French thyme, and French rosemary I planted have now all germinated, and the little seedlings are doing wonderfully.

Click on the slideshow to view it larger in Picasa:


The sweet basil replant and the fino verde basil are also looking very healthy.

Sweet basil:

 

Fino verde basil:

 

The main difference (so far) between the sweet and fino verde basil is in the shape and curvature of the leaves.  The sweet basil leaves are much more rounded and arc upward, while the fino verde basil leaves are pointed and lie flat. 

Here're both side-by-side for easy comparison:

In terms of flavor, the fino verde basil is supposedly stronger and spicier than sweet basil, and Seeds of Change says that the leaves retain their flavor even after flowering.

The shelf cilantro is doing well.  I've moved it to a west-facing windowsill, and while it's hard to beat the growth rate in a greenhouse, all of the seedlings now have primary leaves.

We're starting to get into sunnier and warmer weather here, which is creating nicer growing conditions for the plants by the window and adding intense broad spectrum supplementary light to the greenhouses.  It would be nice to live somewhere that had sunnier winters so that the fluorescent lights would be supplemental to the daylight instead of the other way around.