Baby plant chronicles

It's been about a month since my seedling sprouted, and they have definitely started taking on the character of their varieties. Check out the tiny spines starting to grow on my artichokes. You can tell they were born to be thistles. 

Here is my forest of tomato plants. I had unbelievable success in the sprouting rates, every single pot I started still has a happy 3-6 inch tomato plant growing in it. The salsa varietal was the last to sprout, and they are still the smallest, but they are growing strong. 

I did however learn an important lesson for next year - all the plants in one flat should be the same type. Here you see I've had to raise the light because the tomatoes had grown up into it and then were being bent over by it, but the peppers in the same flat are now much too far from the light. Yes, there's a baby artichoke back there in the corner, I had one pot that had two great looking plants so I transplanted this one. 

The other plants I started didn't all sprout like the tomatoes. Here are the eggplants with their first true leaves. Most of the peppers did ok, but they had closer to a 70% success rate so far. They are also still very small, I'm concerned that they will be the right size in a month when transplanting time comes around. I started adding a 1/4 strength fertilizer to their water last weekend, once everyone had true leaves. I'm going to be watering them with that every Sunday as a special please grow up and make me vegetables treat. 

Outside everything is growing gangbusters as well. I put in two hanging pots of strawberries. I've never grown strawberries because I've always heard they were more trouble than they were worth, but my local nursery had them on sale so I made an impulse purchase. We'll see if these little guys can change my mind. 

Also, like I said last post I did get all my raised beds up. It took all weekend and seriously strained my whole body, but they are up and starting to grow baby plants. I had intended to take pictures and show the whole process, but then I got outside, got dirty, got tired, got thirsty, started whining, and then I couldn't talk my husband into going into the house and getting the camera. I'll post just about them tomorrow, but here's a preview.