What's sprouting indoors

Of the seeds I started on January 9:

• The Persian Garden Cress started coming up two days later, the scallions I planted in the other side of the flat started coming up two days after that. I am hoping that, with the daylight fluorescents, I can keep this flat indoors handy to the kitchen.

• I had a wicker basket that I started plants in outside over the summer. In fall, I planted catnip in it. I also stuck one lone garlic bulb in when I couldn't figure out where else to put it. I was keeping the basket just outside my window, until somebody reached in and took all the healthy catnip plants, leaving only a few stragglers (and the garlic). I replanted in with dill and three more garlic cloves, planning also to keep this indoors by the kitchen. The dill started sprouting on the 13th and two more garlic shoots had poked up on the 17th. The whole bed also bloomed with fungus; I thought it was clever to mulch it with coffee grounds, and I made the mistake of using old grounds. Scraping the surface, and sprinkling with "compost starter" (lots of beneficial microbes) helped to tone it down, but it still kept coming back in spots. I finally took the whole thing outdoors, hoping the fresh air and cold will help.

• I started another small wicker basket for the kitchen with chives and cilantro; the chives started sprouting on the 14th and the cilantro on the 17th.
  
  
• I started some Dwarf Curly Parsley soaking on the 9th and on the 10th I put it in a plastic yogurt container with drainage holes cut in the bottom. It began sprouting on the 16th.

On the 13th I bought more seed-starting soil and two 72-cell, covered planting trays; one with peat pellets, and one without. In the peat tray, I started:

• 6 Canterbury Bells
• 6 leeks
• 6 Red Winter kale
• 9 "Marvel of Four Seasons" lettuce
• 9 Moss Green Curled parsley
• 9 "Johnny Jump-Up" violas
• 9 King Henry violas
• 9 winter pansies
• 9 Swiss Giant pansies

I also planted, on the 13th, a wicker basket of spinach for the kitchen.

On the 16th, all 9 lettuce, 2 kale, 1 leek, 1 canterbury bell, 1 k.h. viola had sprouted; on the 17th 1 more kale, 1 more leek, 1 swiss pansy, and the first spinach sprouts. From then to the 20th, more Canterbury Bells have come up, leeks, kale, violas of both kinds, and pansies of both kinds.

On the 14th I put starting soil in part of the second tray and started 6 verbena, 6 Rosa Bianca eggplant, and 12 Summerlong basil. 5 cells of basil and 1 eggplant sprouted on the 17th; two verbena on the 19th, two more eggplants just came up on the 20th.

On the 15th I started soaking some Moss Green Curled parsley. On the 16th I also started soaking bell peppers, several kinds of tomatoes, several kinds of kale, leeks, and Swiss Giant pansies. I made my first newspaper pots, filling them with peat moss moistened with worm tea, and started 4 pots of tomatoes: 1 pot Early Girl, 2 pots Matina, and 1 pot Brandywine.

On the 17th, I filled more of the cells in the starting tray and planted 6 cells of Sweet Million cherry tomatoes, 6 Sun Cherry, 7 Brandywine, and 5 Oregon Spring. I also planted a yogurt-container pot of Moss parsley.

Also on the 18th, I planted sweet bell pepper seeds in a little plastic container that pearl onions came in. It has a flip-top lid, and air slits along the sides of the lid and the base.

The spinach basket began growing mold and some of the spinach sprouts wilted. On the 18th, after scraping off as much of the mold as I could and sprinkling the surface with Soil Alive and Dr. Earth Compost Starter, I planted some more spinach seeds, some leek seeds, and three garlic cloves. As of the 21st, four spinach shoots are going strongly, and two new ones are coming up. There is very little mold. I am thinking, though, that the spinach may germinate much better outside.

Some of the cells and pots in the seedling trays also began showing mold. I scraped it off and sprinkled them with the Soil Alive and Dr. Earth Compost Starter mix. I left the plastic lids off.

On the 19th, I made more and better newspaper pots, and potted the rest of the tomato and pansy seeds that had been soaking. Unfortunately, I did not label which was which. I told myself I would remember, and write it down tomorrow. I did not.

I know that in one box I have four pots of Marianna's Peace at one end, two pots of Swiss Giant pansies at the other, and four pots of Florida Petite tomatoes in the middle. I should be able to tell the difference between those soon after they show leaves; Marianna's Peace is a potato-leaved tomato, Florida Petite is not, and Swiss Giant are, well, pansies.

I used the plastic lid off one of the seedling trays to hold the other newspaper pots. In the middle are the pots I started the 15th, easily identifiable by appearance; each of my first newspaper pots was unique in its own weird way. At one end are some more Early Girls, and at the opposite end are more Brandywines. I think Brandywines are also potato-leaved, so I may be able to sort those out, too.

While the indoors temperature is too high for spinach germination, which prefers 40 degrees or so, it is not quite high enough for tomato germination, which prefers 75 to 80 degrees. I can put the spinach outside to germinate, but I don't know how to heat up the tomatoes without seedling heater mat, which costs more than I can afford. I'll just have to wait and see. I did plant several seeds per pot. If all of the pots do sprout, I'll be giving away most of the seedlings.

On the 19th, I planted catmint in a little wicker basket. When that grows up into a nice healthy mound, I'll take it into Real Change for Sid the Cat.

And that's that. I am going to try more winter sowing outside this week; I'm not going to start anything more inside until I get more shelving!

Getting started on 2008!

One of my 2008 New Year Resolutions is to keep my garden journal more regularly this year.

Starting off with -- seed starts! I bought a four-foot shop light and two full-spectrum fluorescents at Home Depot, total $30. This is much cheaper than the indoor stations in seed-starting catalogs -- but it does not come with shelving for the plants or a stand for the light. Or extra space in the apartment.

Our apartments in the Union are studios, the kind called SROs, which officially stands for "Single Resident Occupancy." I say it stands for "Standing Room Only." In order to squeeze in a seed-starting station, I stood the light up against a bookshelf and piled milk crates and planting containers between the bookshelf and the microwave. And on the microwave. And in front of the bookshelf. With a holding area in the bathroom for pots that are not sprouting yet.

This first photo shows the shop-light:


In the second photo, you see the motley collection of pots and shelving I have cobbled together:


The wicker baskets are permanent planters; two will stay in the kitchen, along with one of the other trays and a couple of yogurt containers. They contain chives, cilantro, cress, scallions, spinach, leeks, garlic, and two kinds of parsley.


The last of the wicker baskets has been sown with catmint. When it grows up to a nice thick mound, I'll take it into the office for the Cat Executive Officer.


The yellow pot contains one of the three perennial geraniums I planted in the perennial bed in November. I dug one up to bring indoors for a closer look at how & whether it comes to life. It has a small green sprout now; too small to see in the photo yet, but exciting to me. :)


The little plastic box isn't really pearl onions, as labeled; it's bell peppers. The container makes a nice little greenhouse, with plenty of air circulation and no mold problems so far.

There are also a couple of 72-cell Jiffy seed-starting trays. I took the tops off because I was getting mold on some of the cells. Mold's been growing on practically everything. I think I used too much water in the starting soil. Picking off as much mold as I can and then sprinkling with bioactives, Soil Alive! and Dr. Earth's Compost Starter, have helped control it -- maybe just by drying the surface. I've even sprinkled pots that haven't shown mold yet, to be proactive. For the last few batches of seeds, I've mixed the bio-powders in with the soil right at the start, and I haven't seen mold on them yet.

In the bathroom are handmade newspaper pots of far more tomatoes than I will ever plant. :) (You can probably tell which ones were my first efforts!) If they all grow up healthy, I'll give the excess away.


By the time these pots show green, I hope to have bought, begged or borrowed a small bookcase, and be able to arrange the plants better. I also might get a second $30 light setup and put it in the bathroom.

Everything is sprouting up pretty fast except the spinach. (I added some leek seeds and three garlic cloves in the wild hope the would help combat the mold.) It finally dawned on me that it's too warm in here for spinach to germinate; it would actually do better outside. I'm going to take the basket out back tomorrow; after everything gets going, I might bring it back in.

More lessons from 2007

1. Learn how to mulch. First I was waiting to mulch until the seedlings came up. Then I was afraid of smothering the seedlings, so I was waiting until they got high enough that I could put mulch under them. Then I was overwhelmed by the difficulties of tucking mulch in around the base of all those plants. I didn't learn until the end of the year that I don't have to "tuck it in" around the stem. :D I also didn't have the money for a good commercial mulch, the transportation to get much of it, or the patience to shred enough newspaper to mulch 70 square feet of ground. And don't use peat moss as mulch. It dries into an almost impermeable layer. I learned that after just one watering. My most effecti ve mulch was coffee grounds. I was cautious with them this year -- next year I'll be less cautious.
   


2. Don't plant cucumbers beside the lavender. Interplanting works great, but cucumbers need LOTS more water than herbs are comfy with. Flowers and herbs, okay; strawberries and herbs, okay; cucubits and herbs, no.
   


3. Mark where you planted! I sometimes forgot where seeds were, and which. The markers of individual nursery plants got lost, too. Not as big deal, but I was surprised when our (one) green pepper turned red; and what I thought was a zucchini turned out to be a sunburst squash while the sunburst squash turned out to be a zucchini.
   


4. Keep up the garden journal better. I started out faithfully recording every sowing, every watering, every feeding, every time it rained, the date I started a new worm bin or compost bin. By the end of September, though, I slacked off on keeping records. Now I wish I had them.
   


5. When you buy nursery seedlings, you can get more than one in a pot. The reason the peppers never thrived turned out to be that they were each two plants, put in together. When I tried to separate multiple seedlings in other pots, they sometimes did not thrive. Again it seems best to steel yourself to cut off extra seedlings early, in order to get one productive plant.
   


6. If you start your own plants, you have more control over what you get. Of three pots I bought all simply labeled "zucchini," one was light green and pear-shaped, one was dark green and round, and one was dark green and, well, zucchini-shaped. This was interesting, but... well, I want to know what I'm raising!
   


7. You have to start the winter garden before winter. I could have more growing now, if I'd realized I had to plant it earlier.
   


8. Foliar feed is pretty much wasted on lightly-feeding plants. Not that it hurts them - but it's a waste of money.
   


9. Don't try starting seeds in potting soil. It works much better in peat moss. And even in warm weather, some plants start better in peat moss than in garden soil.
   


10. Worm castings don't solve everything. They worked so well on the black spot that I tried them on the downy mildew, too. Doesn't work on downy mildew.
    


11. The charts say beets like acid soil, but mine grew a lot better after I added some dolomite lime.
    


12. Sunburst squash tastes better when you let it grow larger. The bite-sized squash on crudité trays is pretty bland, and isn't worth the space in a community garden when you have to make salad for 20 once a week. When it gets to three or four inch diameter, it develops a very pleasant flavor - and goes a lot farther!
    


13. Lemon cucumbers taste better when they are very deep yellow. They are edible when they've just begun to turn orange around the stem, but at that point they taste like almost any other cucumber. If you wait until the whole cucumber is dark yellow with streaks of orange, they begin to taste lemony. In a salad, though, nobody noticed any difference. Plant less lemon cucumbers next year, and use them whole.
    


14. When they say to use compost tea right away, they mean it. I let it sit too long, twice. BIG stink.