Okra, Herb, & Tomato Seedlings

The seeds that I planted last week have been coming up over the past few days.

okra seedlings breaking free from the potting soil

Big okra seeds produce large, strong seedlings.

All of the herbs seem to have germinated well except possibly the parsley.  Where two seedlings came up in the same soil block, I’ll have to remove the weaker.

sweet basil seedlings

From tiny seeds come tiny seedlings:  the sweet marjoram and summer savory are spindly, little plants at this stage, compared to the stocky sweet basil seedlings above.

sweet marjoram seedlings

I’ve become fond of marjoram since I started planting it.  It keeps well as a dried herb.

summer savory seedling

All these seedlings were sitting on the floor, away from the light; perhaps that’s why this summer savory seedling has grown so tall already.  Last night, I rearranged my plants under the grow light so they all can get as much light as possible.

I had near 100 percent germination from all my tomato seeds except ‘Polish linguisa’, which hasn’t come up yet.  They were a little lackadaisical last year, too.  They’ll probably emerge when they’re ready.

tomato ‘Corleone’ seedling

Do you see the tiny shoot at the center of the two seed leaves?  This ‘Corleone’ tomato seedling seems to have already started forming its first true leaves, even though it’s only been out of the ground for a couple of days.

tomato ‘Rachel’ seedlings

I was worried that the ‘Rachel’ tomato seeds wouldn’t germinate well because some are several years old, so I planted a lot of them.  This is a variety that we grow from seed that we save, so I planted seeds from four different years.  Even the oldest seeds, from five or six years ago, were still viable however.