Today I started noticing the first "true leaves" are starting to open on a number of the plants. That's amazing since it's only been 8 days since I first planted the seeds. When you figure the germination timetable on most of these is 10+ days, it's so surprising to have them not only germinated but also first true leaves in only 8 days.

So today my first artichoke popped up. I've never grown these before - never even cooked one. But I do love eating them. I hadn't even planned to grow any, except that I got a free packet of seeds from the place I ordered my Asian Fingers Eggplant from. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to grow something new, so I decided to give the seeds one set of 6 pods to try growing it.

It seems like every morning when I get up there is a lot more growth. Today there's lots of tomatoes popped up. Yesterday a few had just barely broken the surface and now there are more than a dozen standing over an inch tall. What a difference a day makes. I'm growing a few varieties of tomatoes this year. I always do Roma Tomatoes, as they are great for sauce. I love making fresh spaghetti sauce. And of course I need some slicing varieties. I like tomatoes on BLTs and hamburgers and it's always nice to be able to use a nice big fresh tomato from the garden. But I also like to make salsa.

It's amazing sometimes to see how quickly plants can grow just in a matter of days. The plants that just popped up two days ago are already about 2"+ tall.

I like to take pictures of them each day - often times once in the morning and once at night. This helps me next year when I look back to compare growth, germination, etc. I also have the plants in a busy area - the dining room table - so I walk past them a lot. This allows me to check on how they're doing.

I had a hard time finding some of the seeds I wanted in the store, so I decided to look online. I ended up not only buying the plant I really wanted - Asian Fingers Eggplant - but also some flowers as well. I haven't done flowers from seeds in many, many years and even back then it was marigolds. And anyone who's had those knows it's super easy - just pinch the dried flower, pull everything out, and spread the seeds. 

I woke up on the morning of the 26th to find that my Baby Bok Choi had sprouted. By later in the day so had my Little Gem Romaine lettuce, and Straight Eight Cucumbers. The funny thing is that their germination times were 10-21 days, 7-10 days, and 7-14 days, respectively.