‘Dig’ The Earth

It’s Saturday morning and though I got a late start on seeding my flats this year I am pretty happy with my progress.  I have one mini greenhouse, one milk jug and 2 of the 10″ x 20″ black plastic flats with clear plastic domed covers planted.  After just 4 days I even have some sprouts from one of the flats.

Green Mini Greenhouse: The Basil Flat

I had forgotten how many varieties of basil I had until I went through my seeds the other day.  This will be my second attempt to get some decent plants out of these seeds.  Instead of using store bought peat pots or plastic trays in this mini greenhouse I used my hand rolled newspaper pots that I made a few years ago.  There was enough room for 11 rows of 7 little pots.  I labeled the lid with the seed name and L for left and R for right and the base with L and R so I could keep tabs on which row was which.  They were planted, watered and set in a south facing window with the cover on and vents closed on 4/14/09.

These are the seeds planted in the mini greenhouse from left to right:

• Cinnamon Basil
• Purple Basil
• Italian Sweet Basil
• Dwarf Bush Fineleaf Basil
• Spicy Globe Basil
• Greek Basil
• Fino Verde Basil
• Summerlong Basil
• Siam Queen Thai Basil
• Lime Basil
• Easter Egg Plant (no this isn’t basil, but I had an extra row )

Flat 1: Tomatoes and Peppers

I have a myriad of tomato and pepper seeds.  Since they have similar requirements for temperature and light I decided to plant them in one flat together.  The flat has 16 rows of 8 cells each.  The seeds were planted, watered and covered and placed over the top of my 30 gallon aquarium on 4/14/09.  The temperature above the aquarium and aquarium light is about 80 degrees providing a warm enough temperature to encourage germination.  After 3 days some of my tomatillo seeds (that are 6 years old) already started to sprout.  Yesterday morning, the 17th, I moved the flat to the south facing window.  This morning I noticed that one of Robbie’s Tomatoes had started to sprout.

These are the seeds in Flat 1 from left to right, and bottom to top (or front to back):

• King’s Choice Hybrid Tomatoes/Beefsteak Tomatoes
• Robbie’s Tomatoes/Spike’s Tomatoes (unsure of varieties, harvested from relatives gardens 2 years ago)
• Mom’s Tomatoes/Mystery Hot Pepper
• Olena Ukranian/Italian Market Wonder/Bonny Best/Golden Queen – only had a few seeds so I planted 2 of each
• Costoluto Genovese/Cosmonaut Volkov/Marglobe VF/TigerLike Tomatoes – 2 of each
• Assorted Tomatoes/Speckled Roman Heirloom
• Tomatillos
• Delicious Tomato/ Mystery Tomato
• Jelly Bean Hybrid (commercial ’07 pelleted)/commercial ’08 pelleted/harvested ’07 fermented
• Chile Arbol
• Chile Bola
• Chile Guajillo (4)/Cajun Tabasco (2)/Cuban Hot (2)
• Chile Ancho (aka Poblano)
• Green Bell Pepper/Red Bell Pepper
• Jalapeño Early Pepper/Serrano Pepper
• Marconi Red Pepper/Cayenne Pepper

Milk Jug Greenhouse 1: Mary Washington Asparagus

In this milk jug there are 19 hand rolled newspaper pots with Hoffman Seed Starter mix.  There are air holes cut in the top and sides and drain holes in the bottom.  The pots were seeded and watered and placed outside on 4/16/09.  The Mary Washington Asparagus seeds from 2004 season were put in warm water and allowed to soak for 10 days (hope it wasn’t too long; I kind of forgot about them ).

Flat 2: Herbs and Veggies

This 10×20 flat was filled with 8 9-cell trays.  Each tray holds one variety of seed.

These are the herbs and veggies planted in flat 2 listed as laid out in each tray (since I didn’t plant them in rows per se):

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Fennel	Oregano	Lemon Balm	Summer Savory
Marjoram	Curled Parsley	Early Golden Acre Cabbage RadicchioMilano (1) Early Golden Acre Cabbage	Broccoli Waltham

Well then here is the start of my planting for the 2009 season. I truly hope I didn’t get started too late. I think this afternoon Yeyda and I will go outside once the baby falls asleep so we can start cleaning up the yard. It feels phenomenal to have the windows open finally after being trapped in the house for so many months.

The weather has turned colder.  It’s as if the calendar told the weather, “Hey, it’s October.  It’s time to get cold.”  And it certainly did.  We went from a balmy 80 the week before to mid 50s and low 60s all last week.  There is hope for 70 degree weather this week which would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.

There are still some fall cleanup and and preparation tasks that need to be undertaken in my garden and yard.  Weeding, soil amending, sowing cover crops, planting spring blooming bulbs and mulching are all on my list.  I actually considered starting my winter sowing project a little early this year.  Most of the seeds that should grow after being in a period of cold/freezing weather are from plants that self seed.  Setting them in the mini-greenhouses merely gives them protection from the animals and elements for the season until the spring.  For being almost 7 months pregnant this seems like a long, almost impossible list.  Today my gardening has been reduced to indoor herb gardening since I can’t get outside in the cold rainy weather.

About a month ago I spent the day with my mom and I found a cute glass jar with growing medium and basil seeds.  I love basil and gardening so I thought I’d give it a try.  Unfortunately, it did not dawn on me to take a picture of the soil pellet before I added water so you could see just how much it fluffed up.

What gardening tasks are you still undertaking?

I learned the hard way that even with proper storage commercially produced seeds lose their viability with time. In 2003/2004 I bought a boatload of seeds and have been trying ever since to get them all used up. Well I think I’ve finally succeeded. I should have thrown them away about a year ago. None of the carrot seeds I sowed in the garden germinated, nor did the chrysanthemum, corn salad, arugula, dill, beets or chard. Thankfully, after years of trying I do have a successful and attractive bunch of cilantro. My mache is growing and so is my craquante de quatre saison. Rabbits ate the tops off all my radishes before I could harvest so they were a bust. You could see their little teeth marks in the top of the radish.

Here is a plan to not get stuck with too many seeds. Find a friend that likes to garden and share your seeds with them. Sometimes one package of seeds is too many for a small home garden so splitting it gives both (or more people) something to share. There are several sites across the internet that offer seed sharing and trading, including, Wintersown.org, Gardenhere.com, and Gardenweb.com from iVillage. There is a plethora of people willing to share their seeds and plants for postage and you can too.

When you buy seeds don’t go cheap. It is tempting to buy cheap packs from Big Lots that offer a lot of seeds, but often their viability is much lower than other seeds thus the bulk just gives you more to gamble with. Really consider your space and pick plants/seeds that will fill but not overwhelm each other and you. Also, think about what your family likes and will likely eat in one season.

If you happen to have seeds leftover at the end of a season that you weren’t able to use don’t fret. Keep them in a cool dry place until the beginning of your next season. A freezer is OK; a small college size refrigerator or a corner in your fridge (if you have room) would be ideal. Put them in small plastic boxes with silica gel packs from your shoe boxes so that no moisture bothers them and causes them to mold and rot. If you visit Trudy at Wintersown.org you will see that she has a number of ways to store her seeds, most of them out of cold storage. You must remember though that she turns over those packets very quickly and will rarely have all of those seeds in her possession for a whole season. In any event, try to get your seeds shared or used by the end of the next season. After that it may be time to add them to the compost heap.

It has taken a while but finally the pepper seedlings have come up.  Probably, I could have taken the tomatoes out about a week ago, but morning sickness had me doubled over and too tired to care much about seedlings.  If you look inside my fish tank greenhouse you’ll see a plethora of tomato plants and some new dark green pepper plants.  In blog hopping this morning I came across a post at Ken’s Trees about hardening off seedlings.  I wanted to share with you the schedule he came up with that I am going to follow for hardening off my little plants.

Day 1: 15 minutes in shade

Day 2: 30 minutes in shade

Day 3: 1 hour in shade

Day 4: 2 hours in shade

Day 5: 2 1/2 hours in shade, 1/2 hour in sun

Day 6: 3 hours in shade, 1 hour in sun

Day 7: 4 hours in shade, 2 hours in sun

Day 8: 5 hours in shade, 3 hours in sun

Day 9: 6 hours in shade, 4 hours in sun

Day 10: 6 hours in shade, 6 hours in sun

Day 11: 14 hours in sun location

Day 12: 16 hours in sun location

Since I live out in the country and there are some large trees and outbuildings on the property there are plenty of areas for both shade and sun.  To the north of our house where our back yard is it is very windy most days.  We do have a fence and a few little nooks for windbreak so the seedlings don’t get toppled.  Being inside the tank will also help prevent them from getting too windblown.  The days that will require sun exposure I will put the tank out on the east side of the house early in the morning.  This way the sun won’t be too hot and the temperature of the mornings is still fairly cool.  As the need for sun increases beyond a few hours I’ll have to move the tank to the front, or south, of the house and keep them well watered as they could dry out quickly in full sun.   Like Ken mentions in his post we don’t get full sun in any one spot in the yard for 14 to 16 hours (unless I want to drag the tank into the middle of the neighboring field) so I’d imagine by day 11 I’ll probably be getting ready to plant the little guys in the garden.

This is always one thing that makes me nervous in the growing process – repotting your new seedlings. Sherxr from Ur Resident Chef had a question about when and how to repot. Well, I’ve had my share of successes and failures in this regard, but I’ll share with you the process that seems to work best.

I’d wait until they have one set of true leaves before you move them to a pot (unless they are too crowded). As the seedlings grow make sure they have some airflow to help stave off dampening off fungus and also to make the stalk strong before you repot them. If you plan on setting the pots outside – like on your porch or a rooftop garden – harden them off before you repot unless they are overly crowded.

Hardening off is a process where the plants get accustomed to the conditions outdoors – gradually. Take them outside early in the morning for an hour or two so they get used to the air flow and sunshine. Increase the time they spend outdoors gradually as the days go by. At first keep them out of the heat of the midday sun or you’ll end up with dead seedlings fairly quickly. As When you are getting ready to repot let them dry out a bit and stop fertilizing. Get your pots ready with a good potting mix and use the first leaves that came up after germination to pull them from their current location. A pencil usually works well to lift the roots from the dirt.

For tomato and pepper seedlings if they have more than one set of leaves you can probably bury the plant up to the lowest set in the ground.  This gives the plant added stability as it grows.

Even though it seems I’ve had more failure than success at this endeavor it wasn’t a total loss.  There are some Japanese Irises that are growing; they are no more than 1/2 an inch tall, but they are growing.  Also, some of my daisy flats have germinated and are growing.  If they survive for me to transplant I think I’ll put them in a holding bed for this year and next year I’ll find a “permanent” place for them.

Things I’ve learned:

Using a container with a tapered top is not advisable unless you have large enough openings cut in the top and sides to allow water in.  Many of my little flats dehydrated and never germinated because of this problem.

With a wide mouth container be sure you’re openings are large enough for evaporation to escape – slowly.  You don’t want your flat to be too wet, but also you don’t want it to dry out too fast.

Use bleach when cleaning out old juice cartons.  The paper harbors juice and particles that will mold in moist conditions.

Try to keep your flats out of direct sun and make sure they are thoroughly moist – not sopping wet – constantly until the seedlings are ready for transplant.  I cut back on manually watering my coreopsis too soon and they died.

Oh, well.  Guess I’ll try again next year.

On an exciting side note:  It seems veggies and flowers aren’t the only things that will be growing this season.  We just found out we are expecting another baby.  They’ll be joining us in late December.  It will be a welcome addition to our lifelong garden of love.

I guess you could call this recycling. My husband’s cousin’s widow gave me a 10 gallon fish tank that she said she was just going to throw away. It was practically brand new and in perfect condition. So, I couldn’t turn it down. The filter that came with it was very poor quality and insufficient for the needs of a fully stocked freshwater tropical fish tank. No wonder they couldn’t keep any fish alive in it. Anyway, after about a year of trying to keep it going with fish they all died and I turned it into a greenhouse for starting my seeds instead of throwing it out. I figured it has the special aquarium/grow light type lamp and it would hold heat and moisture well; it should work.

I used some of the newspaper pots that I made for my winter sowing project for this greenhouse. I fit in 15 rows of 8 mini pots each with orange juice carton pieces as dividers and markers. This is what I planted between April 23-25, 2008:

Date Planted	Row	# Planted	Bought/Rec’vd	Type	Common Name
4/25/2008	1	4	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Tiger-Like, IND, 70+ DTM
4/23/2008	1	5	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Costoluto Genovese, IND, 90 DTM
4/23/2008	2	4	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Italian Market Wonder, IND, 75 DTM
4/24/2008	2	4	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Olena Ukrainian; IND, 85 DTM
4/23/2008	3	3	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Bonny Best; IND, 72 DTM
4/24/2008	3	3	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Livingston’s Golden Queen, IND, 78 DTM
4/23/2008	3	3	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Cosmonaut Volkov; DET, 75 DTM
4/23/2008	4	9	10/23/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Assorted
4/25/2008	5	9	11/8/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Marglobe VF, DET, 75 DTM
4/24/2008	6	9	10/23/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Speckled Roman Heirloom
4/25/2008	7	9	2003	Fruit	Tomatillo, Mexican Husk
4/23/2008	8	9	4/15/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Jelly Bean Hybrid, Indeterminate
4/25/2008	9	9	9/30/2007	Fruit	Tomato, Delicious
4/25/2008	10	9	2003	Fruit	Pepper, Chile Bola
4/25/2008	11	9	2004	Fruit	Pepper – Ancho/Poblano
4/25/2008	12	9	2003	Fruit	Pepper, Cayenne
4/25/2008	13	9	2004	Fruit	Pepper – Jalapeno Early
4/25/2008	14	8	2004	Fruit	Pepper – Marconi Red
4/25/2008	15	9	2004	Fruit	Pepper – Serrano

 

I watered the whole thing with a pint of water with 2 baby aspirin dissolved in it. Supposedly the aspirin is going to aide in germination and ward off dampening off.

On Monday of this week I was searching through the “barn” and found an old waterproof lamp that’s made for a 15 watt bulb to give heat. I wasn’t going to use it for it’s original enclosure so I brought it in, cleaned it up and hung it inside the fish tank greenhouse as close to the top as I could get it. It keeps the temperature in there a steady 72 F. Both the aquarium light and the heat light are kept on 24-7.

It’s paid off already. I was misting the little pots and noticed that I have three sprouts – 1 of the Marglobe Tomato and 2 of the Speckled Roman Heirloom Tomatoes. In the picture you can barely see them so I’ve circled them in green. Hopefully once their baby leaves unfurl I’ll get a better picture. Not bad for only 5 full days in the tank and 3 under the heatlamp.