Germinated!

As I've mentioned before - It has always been my dream to have a vegetable garden. Only that I've never done anything to achieve that dream. Last December I saw a facebook friend start posting his vegetable garden photos and I remembered "Hey! I want one too!". So I asked him all I wanted and needed to know and researched a lot on the internet. I purchased soil, humus, and my boyfriend's dad gave me perlite and another thing that I don't know what is but I still use it. Just mix it all and use it to plant my seeds.

So far I only have 2 plants germinated: cherry tomatoes and chard.

Chard:

With Chard I only followed the package instructions and plant them directly in the place I wanted them to be. Which I kinda regretted it. I wish I had putted them in a good distribution. You are supposed to eventually thin them out, take out the weakest. But all I see is all of them being strong. So I think I'll just transplant them to other pots when they grow their true leaves.

In approx 5 days it started to show/germinate. From the first day I left the pot outside. Where it gets some hours of direct sun (about 4 or 5). I still don't see signs of true leaves. I think it was really easy to germinate.

Cherry Tomatoes:

Oh tomatoes. I't made me had nightmares... literally nightmares. I had dreams that they would never germinate.

I planted them in some biodegradable pots - because I am waiting my raised bed to be finished. Just putted a bunch of seeds and cover them with the soil mix. It takes 5-7 days to germinate. Mine took 5. I read that you have to start them in somewhere warm - like the top of the refrigerator, cover them with some plastic to retain moisture and that sunlight may kill the seeds. Only that I read those things late. I had the pots outside during the day and on the nights inside my house. I did it for 4 days. Then I read those things and panicked and put them on the top of the refrigerator  and all the stuff. I don't think my first method killed the seeds. I think it made them stronger. I germinated 2 other pots with the "true" method (because I was afraid the first ones wouldn't germinate) and the plants look really weak.

These are the first 6 pots:

I don't have the heart to thin them out. With these too, the strongest ones I'll be transplanting it to other pots. And maybe when they start to bear fruits I'll give the plants to friends and family.

For watering I just touch the soil and see if its moist or dry and depending on it its the amount of water I use. Let's see what happens this week.