Monday, March 14, 2011

seed starting - NOT an easy task

I told myself I wouldn't buy very much for planting in general...I mean why do plants need to be pampered? They have done without for a long time...Well, since seed-starting this year, I've bought 2 (yes, TWO) shop fixtures and 4 bulbs for them, and one seedling heat mat. *sigh*, talking about breaking down! but my entire setup has been under $100. The shelving unit that I am using was already in place in our garage.

After all this, I must be having a bunch of seedlings growing crazily, right? well, read my title for this post again. :-( out of about 36 peat pellet "pots", less than half have sprouted. okay, so some of my seeds are 1 - 2 yrs old, but wow, I expected at least half!

Well, one thing is for sure...this whole experience has humbled me. Seed starting is not a simple process.

But I am not an easy quitter...I have planted a few more seeds, in hopes to get more germination from snow peas (the earlier bunch had 0 germination (that is a ZERO), jacob's cattle beans (also a ZERO germination from the previous planting), butternut squash (I got 1 out of the last planting, yay!), cucumber (I had 2!), I believe it is a celebrity tomato (I haven't planted any of this type before, but I have at least 4 tomato plants from the previous planting), and butternut squash (I may have 1 plant from the previous planting). So, we'll see what the end of the week brings.

*keeping fingers crossed!*

PS: the weeding and bed preparation in my garden is well under way, but I have only managed to finish 1 out of 7.

Tuesday, March 1, 2011

More Seed Starting

Yeppers...last night, since I actually bought myself a seedling heat mat (*gasp*...I never thought I would buy one of these things...but it is freezing in our garage!!), I decided to plant more seeds:

snow peas
sugar snap peas

and the rest are all bush beans:
blue lake
tendergreen
slenderette
royal burgundy
dragon langerie
jacob's cattle

Jacob's cattle is the first shelling bean I am planting. I chose this one because if I wanted to, I can also pick them early as a snap bean and eat whole.

why bush beans? well, basically because the trellises/cages that I do have, I use for grapes, tomatoes, and peas. plus none of my cages are big enough.

so far, only one of my previously planted seeds have sprouted...I did log what I planted where, but there seems to be a mix up. That peat pot log states that it is a sugar baby seedling, but its too small for a watermelon seedling...it looks more like a sage. we'll see soon. (and fingers crossed that all my seedlings will now grow because of the extra warmth!)