I Wet My Plants

My order from March 17th finally came in! A note with my order said their normal processing time is 3 – 5 business days and, with the recent increase of order and subsequent backlog, it was now taking them 15 business days. That’s too bad and I hope they get it fixed this summer. I think next year I’ll prepare my seed list early and order in early February or wait until Seedy Saturday in early March. I would have liked to have winter sown these seeds a couple of weeks ago.

I now have the following seeds:

• Black Spanish Round radish
• Mustard Green mix
• Mexican Sour Gherkin cucumber
• Red Malabar spinach
• Colourful Carrot mix
• Gourmet Heirloom Leaf Lettuce mix
• Persian Broadleaf cress

I think I’ll dedicate Sunday to sowing these seeds indoors and out.

I’ve been sowing seeds like mad these last couple of weeks, feeling like I’m behind when I’m really not. I set my Lazy Gardener’s Automatic Seed Starting Chart for a frost free date of May 17^th, a week earlier than the usual Victoria Day long weekend planting-out date of May 24^th for my area. However, this year the long weekend is a week early and, coupled with my early start date, I’m all thrown off about when I really need to start my seeds. So depending on which date I’m looking at I’m either 5 or 6 weeks before my last frost-free date. Plenty of time to keep sowing seeds indoors.

A YOUNG GARDENER

A couple of weekends ago I asked my 7-year-old nephew if he wanted to sow some seeds for his garden. He picked out ten different types of plants:

• Tomato: colour mixture, Blondkopfchen, Sweetie, Black Plum, Red Lightning, Purple Cherokee and Green Zebra
• Zucchini: Sensation
• Lettuce: Mesclun Mix
• Spinach: Melody

I’d shake out two seeds from the package into a small cup and he’d pick them out with the seeder and put them in the peat pellet. I’d write up the name of the seed and date on two pieces of sticker and he’d put it on a toothpick and stick it into the soil. Then we watered them and tucked them under some Saran Wrap to germinate. It was fun and he was really excited about it.

He was so exited that this past weekend he brought me a package of Jack O’Lantern pumpkin seeds and we sowed those too. I have no idea where I’m going to put that many pumpkin plants, however, I’m happy that I can share my obsession with him.

SPACE-SAVING SHELF

I went to Lowes in the States and bought a three-tier chrome shelf (18”deep x 24”wide x 36”high) to use for hardening off my seedlings and help reduce the floor space taken up by the flats. It’s the same make as the four-tier chrome shelf that I have as my grow-op. I brought it home and set it up:

The top tier is temporarily holding an unfinished flat of tomato seedlings, the middle tier is a full flat of marigold seedlings for my partner’s grandmother and the bottom tier is my nephew’s pumpkin seeds. Each shelf can hold two flats and I was able to find a set of matching rolling wheels and put those on. Now I can easily move the shelf and spin it around instead of having to move the trays when the seedlings grow towards the light. Here are some marigolds stretching towards the sun:

PRE-SPROUTING

I like pre-sprouting some of my seeds on a heating mat to ensure enough seeds germinate for my flats. I soak a coffee filter in water, place the seeds in a grid on a quarter of the filter, fold in half and then in half again and place in the Ziploc bag to put on top of the heating mat. Here you can see some Purple Cherokee tomato seeds that were started on March 24^th.

Three days later on March 27^th you can see they’ve pre-sprouted and need to be put in a seedling tray:

Here I’ve taken them out of the coffee filter and placed them about an inch apart on top of pre-moistened seedling mix:

I covered the pre-sprouted seeds with more seedling mix, put a piece of Saran Wrap over it and stuck it under my grow light set-up:

I was worried that last year’s success was a fluke, however, things have been coming up pretty well these last few weeks. I’ve had a small problem with the seed coat not coming off on some of my tomato seedlings and I think I’ve been able to get around that by lightly pressing the soil surface once I’ve sown the seeds. That way the newly germinated seed can break through the soil surface, leaving the seed coat behind.

Seed Exchanges

About a month ago I signed up for a seed exchange on one of my favorite gardening websites. The first person puts a bunch of packets of seeds into an envelope and mails it to the second person on the list. The second person takes out the seeds they want from the envelope, puts in their contribution of seed packets and mails it to the third person on the list and so on. It’s nice to choose from a variety of seeds and gives you a chance to try new things.

I was second on the list and chose from a selection of about 25 seed packets :

There was a lot of work put into each seed packet with drawings and detailed seed information. I ended up taking out the following:

• Rainbow Chard
• Sweetie Tomato
• Blondkopfchen Cherry Tomato
• Black Plum Tomato
• Lavatera ‘Mont Blanc’
• Carrot ‘Purple Haze’
• Cinnamon Basil
• Carrot ‘lunga San Valerio’, and,
• Salpiglossis Sinuata ‘Bolero Mixed F2′

In turn, I put in my seeds:

I put in a lot of the larger vegetable seeds that I no longer wanted or had room for, such as cauliflower, broccoli and Brussels sprouts. Annuals and some perennials also went into the package. I also put in a pack of mystery seeds from which I had forgotten the parent plant – it may have been pumpkin. Then I packed it all in an envelope and sent it off to the next person on the list.

Seed exchanges like this are neat to try as you’ll never know what you’ll get from the other person ahead of you. For me, I would never have thought of trying to grow Rainbow chard, lavatera or salpiglossis and now I get to see how it will do in my garden.

Seed Purchases

At the top of the month I went to Seedy Saturday unprepared and only bought a couple of seed packets: Dragon carrot, Earliest + Best tomato, Canabec Rose tomato and Chioggia beet. After drooling over the seed catalogues I picked up from the Cottage Gardener, Eternal Seed and Greta’s Organics, I decided to make an online purchase from the Cottage Gardener. I am now awaiting my seed purchases of the following:

• Heirloom Leaf Lettuce collection
• Mustard Green Mix collection
• Black Spanish Round Radish
• Red Malabar Spinach
• Mexican Sour Gherkin Cucumber
• Persian Broadleaf Cress

I also drove to Greta’s Organic Gardens and bought some seeds:

• Montreal Melon,
• Tall Telephone peas,
• Cherokee Trail of Tears pole bean,
• Aunt Ruby’s German Green tomato,
• Black from Tula tomato,
• Black Pear tomato,
• Green Zebra tomato,
• Old Flame tomato,
• Opalka tomato, and,
• Prudens Purple tomato.

I’m looking forward to seeing how everything comes up this spring!