Help with jalapenos

Hey Everyone,

Quick question. I got two flats from seed starting about a week and a half ago. The tomatoes i have are coming up but i've seen nothing at all from the jalapenos. They are under the grow light and the grow light is on about 12-14 hours (depending on when i go to bed at night).

Does anyone have any suggestions/tips to be sure i get stuff growing soon??

Thanks!
Megan

Seed Starting Coordinators

Here's a little blurb about our seed starter volunteers, Bridget and Mike. Bridget has been organic gardening for the last 14 years in her backyard and before that in various community gardens. Mike is an EMU student who has been casually gardening for the last three years. Their interests in community gardening and in helping to develop local and sustainable alternatives to more mainstream methods of food production have led them to volunteer for Growing Hope this spring. Welcome aboard volunteers! Here is a photo of Bridget. We'll be posting one of Mike soon too.

New but eager

Hi Everyone!

I'm so glad this program is available! I start each new spring with visions that i never seem to be able to achieve. Now, I know i'll have a garden support system when my stuff goes all droopy! Thanks GH! See you guys Saturday for the last build.

Megan

Sprouts of excitement!

I'll be returning my two flats (parsley and lettuce) this weekend, and I've really enjoyed the whole process. My light stand kit is set up in our basement (better known as "the Man Cave") and I've enjoyed telling visitors, as well as the weekly poker night crew of guys, about Growing Hope and how these little seedlings will benefit the community.

I think I did a little dance of joy when I saw the first green sprout of lettuce poking up ... it was good to learn from one of Dan's emails that parsley takes longer to germinate, and sure enough, a few days after the lettuce started, the parsley sprouts started to make their appearance. Not every cell in either flat has a sprout, but since I haven't done any thinning, there should be plenty.

I was at the first build, and helped put together the first stand (mine!). Even more, I enjoyed weeding in the hoophouse with a couple other seed-starters as other volunteers prepped the flats, soil, and seeds. Felt so good to get my hands into the soil again! And it was great to chat with other gardeners after a long winter. Now tulips and daffodils are starting their annual surge out of the ground in my patio beds, along with snowdrops and a frittalaria -- and another new gardening season in Michigan makes its (aggravatingly slow!) entrance. Aren't we lucky to be gardeners!?!

I picked up a book recently titled "The Curious Gardener's Almanac: Centuries of practical garden wisdom" by Niall Edworthy and it's full of great quotes, tips, trivia, etc. I'll leave you with this quote, courtesy of Anonymous:

"We come from the earth, we return to the earth, and in between, we garden."

Happy growing!
Carrie

Such a great job

Kelly, I just wanted to say that you are adding so much value to this organization. Thanks out loud to you and all the staff at GH. I heard that Obama is expanding the Americorps program, people should know what that means to their neighborhood. You and others at Growing Hope are shining examples of a great program for good. I look forward to reading everyone's experience with the seed starting squad.

March 14th Build, Returned Seedlings and More!

We had another successful work day last Saturday, March 14th. Fifteen new Seed Starters were able to take home grow lights and seed trays, and start such plants as peppers, tomatoes and edible flowers.

Some seedlings have already been returned from the first round of Seed Starters, including rainbow chard and buttercrunch lettuce from Barbara and Celeste, along with Dwarf Blue and Dinosaur Kale from Judy!

We are having our last build this Saturday, March 28th from 11 am to 2 pm at the Growing Hope Center. The last two builds have been fast, fun and productive, thanks to all of our amazing volunteers. We hope you will all come back this Saturday for our last build!

In the meantime, check out some of the pepper pictures that Alexa (one of our newest seed starters) sent to us this week:

March 11th, 2009

We had our first Light Stand build day for the Seed Starting Squad
last Saturday, February 28th. We had 26 volunteers and five staff
members help out at the build, and were able to send 15 light
stands home with new Seed Starters!