Thursday, January 27, 2011

Great strides in seed starting...

Making out quite well with seedlings these days.. I think this test is about to come to a close now though. The whole point was to see if I could improve upon last years 100% FAILURE rate and come up with some living, breathing, surviving seedlings that would be suitable to transplant into my spring garden, and I think I've done that. This is day #24 of the test.. check out these pics of the survivors:

Overall view of the setup on the 27th of January.. 

Jalapeno's
Basil

Habanero
 That Habanero there.. such a problem child! You can see the one in the photo, just barely.. but there is a tiny seed that just poked it's head up right behind and to the left of this one. There are some true leaves starting to form on this little guy, and I'm torn on if I want to repot it and try to keep it alive or not. Part of me says to leave it be and chuck it out the door, because it must be a weakling.. but the other part of me sas to pot the sucker up and give it a chance.
Roma Tomato

More Roma's, showing height compared to my hand.. :)
So there you have it. Those Roma's are monsters now. They grow 1/4 to 1/2 of an inch a day it seems. They're about 4-5" tall now. I think the challenge with these guys is to get everything else that needs to get a head start going first so the Roma's don't make me push the grow lights up too far and away from the rest of the plants. Tricky buggers..

Yesterday I started working on the garden plan.. I drew out some maps of the two beds I'll be working with again, and starting placing things in different spots.. I've left a few open for last minute changes as well, but it looks like I'll have plenty of room. Deviated a bit from prior musings in that I'll put a cherry tomato out there in the lower bed I think, and surround it with low growing things like onions and marigolds and such..

Speaking of marigolds, while at the feed store yesterday, I saw some seed packs that I just couldn't pass up.. ended up grabbing the marigolds I mentioned, for pest control.. I've heard they repel certain pests and bugs because of how they smell, but also pull in good things like bees. I also grabbed some sunflowers, big ones, and some Zinnias too, like those fantastic big guys I had inadvertently planted in a terrible spot last year in the front bed. This year, I will take my Zinnias more seriously and treat them better. They gave my house and flower vases here a lot more usefulness than they usually get.

Ah well, i'm off to revamp my garden calendar.. I've decided to use the info on the seed packets themselves for starting times, rather than use the generic info in the square foot gardening book.. meaning I'm scrapping all the work I did before in hopes of more accurate info from the seed people leading to better stuff as a result. I'm outta here!