Megan, Congrats on the little sprouts! My first pepper sprout was a "Biker Billy" jalapeno, and he beat every other pepper plant by two days. With a name like Biker Billy, you expect to be "first", I guess. I grow hundreds more tomato plants than I need to grow as well, but never have any trouble giving away the extras. Some of them go to friends in her our neighborhood and others go to work so Tim can share them with his coworkers, but many of them make the trek to OKC in April for the Spring Fling. I had potted up most of the tomatoes from my first round of seedstarting and those are the ones basking out in the sun today. Yesterday I potted up the rest from that round, and today I started seeds for the second round. It always freaks out people who stop by the house for one reason or another in the early spring and see hundreds of cups of seedlings lined up on the patio, on tables, on the sunporch, etc. It is fun to have extras so I can say "would you like some plants?" My poor little plants were shivering in the cold wind when the cold front came through at mid-morning but now that the front, the clouds and the heavy wind have passed, they're sunning themselves and enjoying a beautiful afternoon. Now, if only the soil temps and air temps will hurry up and get to the right level so we can plant them in the ground! Dawn

Busy1, So, you're saying they want green tomatoes for frying or making chow chow or something? For a market grower, you know, that's good news.....because you can take green tomatoes to market earlier and (with green tomatoes being more rare) command a higher price. Sounds like a win-win situation. I just won't hardly pick a tomato green except in the fall. If a huge cold front is coming and I know I need to pick all the fruit, I'll pick the green ones and try to ripen them slowly, especially the longkeepers. Most years when I have a lot of greenies, I do send a big bunch to work with DH for one of his coworkers who likes to fry 'em green and also make chow chow. I do grow some green-when-ripe types most years, but they're no more suitable for frying when ripe than the ripe red ones are. River, Bill P., who used to post on Garden Web as Gone Fishin' before he passed away last year, raised most or all of his seedlings in a cold frame every year in either zone 7B or 8A. He was slightly east of Dallas in the suburbs, so I'm not sure which zone he was in but it was either 7B or 8A. He had great success. Actually, if I remember correctly, his was actually a hotbed because he put down a layer of hot (fresh, uncomposted) horse manure several inches down deep in a trench, put garden soil on top of that, and planted directly in the garden soil. The heat created by the horse manure as it decomposed kept his plants just warm enough at night. He always raised beautiful seedlings and the only trouble I ever remember him having was the year it rained non-stop and his in-the-ground plants almost drowned. So, I think it could work for you and, you know, you could throw a heavy blanket or comforter over the "hothouse" if a late snowstorm threatened. I suspect this is one of those projects that you'll just have to try to see if it works. It should work. People have raised seedlings using similar methods for years. If the seeds don't get warm enough to sprout, then you'd essentially be wintersowing, which ought to work fine anyway for most plants. Well, I'm not sure about peppers. Peppers don't like cold at any stage of their development, so I am a little concerned about that. I'd post a message for Seedmama here on this forum and ask her if she wintersows peppers and has success with them. I think Ilene wasn't happy with wintersown peppers in the past either, but I'm not sure if my memory is correct. (The older I get, the less confident I am that the things I "remember" actually happened.....LOL). You also could buy a seed germination mat and start seeds indoors using it underneath the flat. In the room where I have my light shelf (with ordinary fluorescent lights) and germination mat, the room always seems hotter to me than any other room in the house, and I think the lights generate more heat than you'd think. Just lights and a germination mat might create enough heat in your house to start seeds, and then you wouldn't have to worry about the temperatures dropping too much outside and causing you to lose your plants. If you try this method outdoors, you also could place milk jugs or two-liter bottles full of water inside your frame. They'd serve as solar collectors--absorbing sunlight and heat all day long and then releasing it into the air at night as they cooled. If you paint the bottle black, they'd probably heat up a few more degrees. You also could add heat by purchasing a soil heating cable and running it through the soil underneath the cans with your seedlings. You also could line your coldframe with a light-reflecting mylar paper. It would reflect light/heat back onto your plants. That kind of thing would be available in rolls from someone like Worm's Way that sells to indoor and greenhouse growers. You probably could get a similar effect from aluminum foil, but it might not be as reflective. Later in spring, as the occasional very warm day hits, you'll have to open the lid up during the day so that your plants don't roast. Dawn

I have way too many seeds, but haven't started most of them yet. I have bell and jalapeno peppers, parsleg, eggplants, hyssop, "kiss me over the garden gate", datura metel, 4-o-clocks, and maybe a couple of others planted. I just got 2 kinds of nicotiana in the mail, plus a very unusual columbine. I'm getting ready to order 10 more kinds from the American Horticultural Society's seed swap (* Someone NEEDS to STOP ME SOON *) also! I love starting things from seeds. We do all our veggies from seed, of course, and I start lots of perennials and annuals. Sigh - can't wait for spring to come back, yesterday was in the mid 50s here and the snow finally melted off our yard!!!

I started 13 seed trays this weekend. I stole, er, um, borrowed one of DH's wire storage reacks out of the garage and set it up in the kitchen and filled it up with trays of those little peat pellets. I'm using a heating pad with 15-minute automatic shutoff under the tomato seeds to provide a little extra warmth. I had to place it in front of a North-facing window because we have such a long porch overhang on the east side. I have grow lights going over the trays except, the shelf is 3' wide and the grow lights come in 2' or 4 feet lengths. Aaarrhghghg!!!!! I'm suffering the "10 hotdogs and 8 buns" syndrome. Need I even mention that the 4 footers are not twice as much as the 2 footers, oh, no, they're more like 4 times the cost. Oh, well, for better or for worse, I started seeds this weekend. I also started cleaning out my vegetable garden beds and cleaned out my tool shed, planted a few cannas and daylilies, and sorted out my seeds in preparation for the Spring Swap at Forest Park in Fort Worth. Cheryl