Transplanting Tomatoes and Thinning Carrots

Today's garden foray was modest but important. The tomato seedlings were about 4 inches tall with two or three sets of leaves, and they were getting very tall for the seedling tray in which they were living. So, time to transplant!

Here they are in their tray... and here's how they look once in their new pots:

I think they'll be much happier now. I expect to see very rapid growth from here on out. On the other front, thinning the carrots was a new one for me.

I planted carrots last year - it was a dismal failure. You know what a pencil looks like when you've sharpened it all the way down to the eraser? That was bigger than the carrots I got. All six of 'em.

I got mad and tried again. Since carrot seeds are so tiny, I kinda just poured them into a narrow channel I'd made in the dirt with my finger. So they were growing up all clumped together, like this:

Not so good for carrot root formation. So I thinned them out to one carrot every inch and a half or so. I used fingernail clippers to clip off the leaves at soil level, so that I didn't risk harming neighboring roots.

It was disconcerting to be destroying perfectly healthy plants, but... I want some well formed carrots at the end of the season!

Here they are, thinned out:

What a difference, right? They might require some more thinning later, but for now, I'm leaving them be.

I might have yet another gnat problem in this pot, but they're growing fine so far, and I'm going to combat the gnats as best I can by drying out the soil and using pesticide Dust.

Tis all for now!