Spring Seeding - a step forward and two steps back..

It was a glorious day yesterday - over 10 C on my back deck and sunny.. I sat out there seeding flats of tomatoes and peppers - as usual, I will have more to plant than available space in the garden. To cut back on the amount of transplants that I'll end up with, I seeded just 3 of most of the varieties that I have. I did, however, plant a dozen of Sungold and a dozen of Costoluto - we need at least 6 plants of each of these and I like to have a few on hand to share as well.. Last summer, we had 72 tomato plants.. this year, I hope to have around 50, but since many of the varieties are dwarf tomatoes (thanks Craig - http://nctomatoman.weebly.com/), I may try to see if I can squeeze in a few more!

I also picked a few dozen carrots from the carrot frame - I really need to empty out that cold frame for late winter replanting!! It's amazing how well the herbs tucked in the corners of the cold frames do over the winter. The thyme, parsley and chervil are all still growing strong. I just picked a few sprigs of thyme for a gourmet mac and cheese tonight! Yum!

It was so nice outside, that I toyed with the idea of leaving the frames open for the night, but decided against it because of the risk of the deer finishing off the last of our winter crops. Glad I didn't do that, as we woke up to a few cm of snow this morning! The temp had also nosedived and it's now -11 C with the windchill.. so much for spring!?!

Well, at least in 6 days it will be officially spring!

Happy Gardening!