I'm really glad I decided to winter sow seeds this year, if nothing else than the fact that the indoor seedlings were protected from the freezing temps of my unheated house last week. I'm shocked by the success of the cauliflower seedlings, pictured above on the morning of the 3rd day after sowing. I guess my makeshift growing station did the trick! Here is the same seedling later that evening:
So chipper! I have three other plants just like this one that are plugging right along...so much so that they are actually getting a bit too big for their britches and are falling over. I am reluctant to call this legginess yet because I only pressed the seeds into the surface of the soil hoping they would receive as much light as possible, so their roots are super shallow.
I read somewhere that brassicas benefit from deeply transplanting, and like tomatoes, if you bury the stem, it will produce more roots. So yesterday I opened up the soda bottle greenhouses and tucked in a few spoonfuls of warm, moist soil around the little seedlings to prop them up.
Much better. They rewarded me today by waving out nice, full true leaves to catch some rays (the first sunny day in a while--we all needed it). I braved Monday's snow shower to peek in on the broccoli seedlings outside in their milk jugs, and despite being frozen to the table they are sitting on, I was greeted with many of these little faces:
This little guy wasn't even close to being one of the biggest. There are about 2-3 seedlings in each jug, and I'm hoping they will be ready for transplanting in early March. It's incredible how warm it stays inside the jugs, despite overcast, wet, freezing weather. I should remember that for the next power outage!
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