The Great Cucurbita Experiment

This week I thinned out the squash seedlings. I felt like a murderer. Now there's only one in each party cup.

The tomato seedlings are starting to look much better. Stockier, not so fragile. They're finally getting the beginnings of the first true leaves. The peppers are slooooow.

I've GOT to start focusing. I'm starting to believe that I've bitten off more than I can chew this year. Once everything is in the ground, I'll be fine, but right now, I've got so many grand plans, and I'm not sure I can implement all of them. My downfall is all this downtime before the last frost date. I keep thinking up all this neat stuff I can do: the Asian soup garden, the herbs in the strawberry pot (or will it be strawberries in the strawberry pot?!), a new compost pile, companion plants... and on and on. I've got to just sit down and make a list of the things I know I can do, then stick to it.

I've found that there's a huge information gap in all the books that I have regarding seedlings/transplants and so forth. Once they sprout, am I supposed to transplant to bigger pots before they actually go in the ground? That's definitely going to be the case with the seeds I started in the peat pellets. I guess I'll have to move them up to party cups. So why didn't I just start them in cups in the first place? I probably won't use peat pellets again; what a pain in the ass.

And the tomatoes (in cups)... am I supposed to move those into something bigger? They're pretty tall, if I move them, I can plant them deeper and get more roots started on them before they go in the ground next month. Totally confused...