Sproutage! We Have Sproutage!

The last few days have been rainy, windy,  gray days with no sunshine to brighten things up. So it was a lovely surprise to be greeted by the sight of  little green plants popping up in the trays I seeded last week.

You can barely see them, but that's the Swiss Chard on the left and some basil on the right.  I seeded the basil a bit more thickly than I would have liked.  Well, actually, I shook the packet a little too vigorously and the seeds are so tiny that there was no way to fish them out of the vermiculite, so I'll have  more little  seedlings of basil to pot up and may have to  make a much larger area for basil in the herb garden.But, really, can one have too much basil?  I think not ;-)

There is something so exciting about  those first seeds emerging. Like the jonquils that  pop up, sometimes through the snow, they are little messengers from Mother Nature, sent to let us know that winter will end soon and Spring is on its way.  I'm excited about the prospect of having  the tomatoes and eggplants emerge soon, and sowing more seeds.  I've already set the  fluorescent lights over these two sprouting babies to make sure they get about 15 hours of light  a day. I was able to turn the lights off  for most of the day today because we had beautiful glorious sunshine streaming in the greenhouse, making  artificial light necessary only when the sun faded.

Yes, Spring is on the way! There may be  more dull, gray days of winter before us,  maybe even some snowy days, but there will be  more sunny days, too, and Spring WILL come!