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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> If you have the perfect greenhouse set-up, please 
> don't tell me.
> 

How about an imperfect greenhouse setup?

I planted tomato seeds yesterday hallucinating over being able to plant very 
early tomatoes in the former hog log in hot beds.

The greenhouse is PVC hoop covered with 6 mil polyethylene that, of course, 
has to be replaced each year.  The idea is to trap heat when it's available 
and 
suvive when it's not.  On a recent day when it as 52 degrees sunny ouside, it 
was 92 in the greenhouse.  I discovered that tomato and even pepper seeds 
don't need continuous heat to sprout so long as mold or rot doesn't set in on 
long cold periods.  The sprouting takes longer but works fine.   If the 
outside 
temp is going to fall below about 28, I take all the fats off the benches and 
put them in the middle of the greenhouse (it's 14' x 28').  If the temp is 
going to get down to 25, I put a plastic painter's drop cloth over the flats, 
and 
if it is going to get below 25, I light a kerosene lamp under the tarp.  Last 
year I had to use the lamp four times and so far this year, never.

I put a 1/2" piece of hardware cloth (rat wire) on the flat and make a 
depression with a chop stick on every other square on every other row.  That 
gives 
me something like 190 holes on the standard sized flat 1" apart in all 
directions.  Into those holes I sow onions, kale, leeks, caggage (et al), 
lettuce, 
tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, turnips, beets, flowers, and herbs.   Sometimes 
sweetcorn and peanuts.  When the seedlings emerge and have true leaves, I 
transplant them to 4 oz or 6 oz cups,  Beets and turnips are transplanted 
directly to 
beds out of the flats when they are about 1" tall.

I found planting them first in flats lets me choose the best seedlings for 
the cups and pots and I get better results, thinks I.  Also by seeding things 
like lettuce and kale in the flats, I am not encumbering the growing beds for 
the first 30 or more days of the growth cycle (counting germination time) so 
that more successive plantings can be done on the same ground.