A lot of our time has been occupied with starting our tomatoes and peppers in the basement, using fluorescent lights, these past few weeks. Basically we start the seeds in seed flats and continue to transplant them to bigger peat pots as they grow until they are ready to be planted in the fields come May. The tomatoes destined for the High Tunnel will be planted sometime in late April, I believe.

We have a wood stove in the basement which we keep fired up to give the seeds the warmth they need to germinate and grow. Once the weather warms up, we begin to put them into our unheated outside greenhouse to give them the benefits of the sun.

As you can see from the pictures below (sorry about the poor lighting but it is the basement!), we have set up shelves and fluorescent lighting around the wood stove. The heat from the stove helps the seeds to germinate better.

And below is a picture of what results from the above process. A tiny plant that we hope will eventually give us lots of luscious tomatoes starting in July!