I Wet My Plants

I’m about a week behind starting my peppers indoors so I decided to start them this morning.  Pepper seeds need a lot of heat to germinate and,  since I’m behind schedule, the best and fastest way to do that is called pre-sprouting.  I’ve written about it before, however, I wanted to give more detail on the steps I take.

For my supplies, I use a Sharpie, sandwich-sized Ziploc bags, coffee filters, two plates (the left one is filled with water), seeds and a heating mat:

I take one coffee filter and soak it in the left-hand plate that has water in it:

I transfer it to the dry, right-hand plate and space pepper seeds in one quarter area:

I fold the coffee filter in half:

And then again so that it’s a quarter of the size:

I write the name of the pepper variety on a Ziploc bag using a Sharpie pen and place the damp, folded coffee filter with seeds in it and zip it up:

After I’ve packaged up all the pepper seeds that I want to pre-sprout, I put them on my heating mat, arranging them so that they all receive equal heat:

I started:

• Chocolate Beauty
• California Wonder
• King of the North
• Habanero
• Red Habanero
• Variegated Fish
• Holy Mole
• Early Jalapeno
• Joe’s Long Cayenne
• Bhut Jolokia

It’ll take a few days before they begin to sprout and until then I’ll be checking them every morning to see if they’re drying out and need extra water.  I’ll only add enough water for the coffee filter to soak up as too much water will encourage rot.

Here is that bag of Berger germinating mix I was telling you about:

It’s a pretty huge bag and I haven’t used even a quarter of it yet despite seeding a dozen trays and giving some to my mom.  Remember how I said that the quality was really good?  Look for yourself:

I like to use plastic seed tray inserts for all my indoor seeds.  The easiest way I’ve found to prepare the trays is by dumping a bunch of the seed starting mix into the sink:

And then adding a lot of water.  You don’t want the mix too dry or too wet, something similar to moist and crumbly:

The amount in the sink is enough to fill up three trays with a little bit left over:

In the above picture you can see my new two-tray seedling mat which is twice as awesome as my single-tray seedling mat that I gave to my mom.

Last week I finally got my grow op set up in the basement.  Since I got my camera fixed up, here’s a shot of the current trays of seedlings:

Those upper-left leggy seedlings?  Lettuce and greens.  The rest are mainly tomato seeds.  When you sow your tomato seeds, it’s good to have a clear dome on top to keep the moisture in while the seeds germinate.  Sometimes you’ll get a seedling that still has the seed coat on the initial cotyledon leaves.  This happens when you don’t tap down the germinating mix over the seed when you sow it – the seedling has to poke up through a packed soil surface, leaving the seed coat below the surface.  Here’s what you don’t want:

If you keep the dome on the tray, the moisture will keep the seed coat damp, allowing you to easily remove the husk:

If you take the dome off before you remove errant seed coat husks, the husks will dry and be harder to remove.

Here’s a shot of all my little seedlings:

They get about a half hour of fan abuse everyday to help them strengthen their stems (I was slow in doing this for my lettuce seedlings which is why they’re so leggy).  Here’s my list so far of all the tomato seeds I’ve sown.  The numbers in brackets indicate the number of seedlings that have popped up so far:

• Amish Paste (8)
• Andrew Rahart’s Jumbo Red (1)
• Azoychka
• Berkely Tie Dye
• BHN-624 (8)
• Black from Tula
• Black Krim
• Black Plum (7)
• Brandywine, Cowlick’s Pink
• Burbank
• Chapman
• Cherokee Purple
• Cuostralee (7)
• Eva Purple Ball (9)
• German Red Strawberry (1)
• Giannini
• Gogosha
• Gold Rush Currant (6)
• Goose Creek
• Jaune Flamme
• JD’s Special C-Tex (5)
• Josefina
• Juliet (2)
• KBX
• Martino’s Roma
• Matt’s Wild Cherry (7)
• Mexico Midget
• Momotaro
• Opalka
• Paul Robeson
• Pink Berkely Tie Dye
• Prue (5)
• Red Brandywine
• Red Penna (9)
• Riesentraube
• Ropreco Paste
• San Marzano
• Sapho (7)
• Sara’s Galapagos (5)
• Snow White (4)
• Sweet Pea Currant (8)
• Tommy Toe

Remember how I said that other organic seed starting mix was rubbish as there were lots of twigs in it?  Here’s a shot of some cabbage and chive seedlings that I started in that crummy mix:

See all those little chunks and twiggy bits?  The quality has really declined over the years.  Compare to the new Berger mix stuff I’m using:

It’s a pretty huge difference – it’s lighter and has a better consistency.

Full blown indoor seed starting is in full swing in my living room and basement.

A couple of weeks ago I picked up a 3.8 cu.ft. bag on Berger germinating mix at Richmond Nursery for $38.95 plus tax – I figure it’ll last me at least two season’s worth, if not three.  In the past I used Home Gardener’s Organic Starter mix in 10-litre bags, however, it was expensive and the quality has gone significantly downhill in the past couple of years (I’d find numerous 2″ twigs in almost every bag).  I really like this new germinating mix as it’s very light and fine and has an even consistency when wet.  Unfortunately they didn’t carry the organic line so I’ve had to make do.

I also set up a wire fence around my small home garden.  I picked up a vinyl green 2′ x 50′ 16-gauge fence rolled up in a bag for $29.99 and six 3/8″ x 2′ fiberglass posts at #3.19 each for a grand total of $55.52.  Since the ground is still frozen a bit in my garden, I could only knock them down as far as I could.  This will keep the dogs out of the garden – they’ve already dug a couple of holes and torn up the tarp covering the garlic.

I finally organized my grow-op in the basement, clearing away trays and pots that still need to be washed with a solution of 10% bleach.  This is my least favourite task as it’s killer on the lower back.  All 8 fluorescent lights are set up, two on each shelf, and three flats of leggy seedlings are now under them.  No photos as of yet as my camera’s memory is shot.  New snaps of the set-up will come soon.

Current seedlings are as follows (number of seedlings in brackets):

Brussels sprouts:

• Balbriggan (4)

Cabbage:

• Gortahork (5)

Chives:

• Garlic
• Nira

Greens, green:

• Persian broadleaf cress (8)
• Suehlihung No. 2 (9)
• Sylvetta arugula (6)
• Tres fin marchiere frissee endive (5)
• Vitamin Na (9)

Greens, red:

• Garnet Giant (9)
• Red Giant mustard (5)
• Ruby Streaks (9)

Kale:

• Red Russian (1)
• Red Ursa (8)
• White Russian (8)

GREEN LETTUCE

Butterhead:

• Ermosa (8)

Looseleaf:

• Green Star (4)

Summer Crisp:

• Barbados (5)

RED LETTUCE

Oakleaf:

• Jamai (2)

Romaine:

• Outredgeous (9)
• Sweet Valentine (9)

This year’s Seedy Saturday was packed as per usual.  We got there at 9:45 AM and people were already milling about the seed trade table as well as buying all sorts of goodies.

I brought my parents this year as they are starting a bunch of raised bed gardens in their backyard and wanted to buy/trade some seeds.  I had packaged up enough seeds for all of us to pick and choose what we wanted from the seed exchange table:

Here are my seed packets in the mix on the table:

I figured out that I’d put together over 180 packets of seeds.  At roughly 10 seeds a packet, that’s over 1,800 seeds I counted!  Next year I’ll make a note to start earlier as I had just finished packaging the seeds that morning before going to the event.

In exchange, I picked up the following:

• Sweet red pepper
• Triamble squash
• OSU Blue tomato (my prized trade!)
• Odawa beans, dry
• Six Nations beans, dry
• Painted Mountain corn
• Romanesco cauliflower (2, one for Mom)
• Cayenne hot pepper
• Eastern columbine
• Gojiberry
• Red columbine
• Scarlet runner beans
• Mini garlic bulbs and
• Deptford Punk dianthus armeria

I met up with local blogger/gardening friend, Veggie Patch Reimagined, at the table and we did some side seed trading.  That OSU Blue tomato seed I scored?  That came from her and I think I may have actually snatched it out of her hands when she showed me.  So rare!

We checked out the vendors and I ended up buying some white creamer potatoes from La Ferme de Bullion and some Colourful Carrot mix from the Cottage Gardener.  Here’s my one shot of the event:

This year’s attendees were:

• a bakery whose name I couldn’t figure out
• A Pinch of Penny’s Kitchen
• Beaver Pond Estates
• Capital Worm Ranch
• Charing House Gardens
• Community Gardening Network of Ottawa
• Eastern Ontario Gardener’s Tour Guide
• Eco Ottawa
• Eternal Seed
• Fair Trade Chocolate
• Greta’s Organics
• Ground Soap
• Heritage Seed
• Honey Pie Hives
• Hunt’s Wholesome Honey
• Just Food
• La Ferme Cooperative Tourne-Sol
• La Ferme de Bullion
• La Vie En Rose
• Maison Tucker
• Ottawa Valley Food Cooperative
• Ottawa Valley Native Plants and Wildflowers
• Project Tembo
• Pure Shea
• Seeds of Diversity
• Square Foot Gardening
• Steward Bags
• Take Charge Tea
• Terra Edibles
• The Cottage Gardener
• The Green Collection
• Urban Harvest
• USC Canada
• Worm Factory
• Yuko’s Open Pollinated Seeds

It was another successful and fun Seedy Saturday!

Seedy Saturday is tomorrow and I still have to get all my seeds for the seed trade table ready!

I’ve got a bunch of different tomato, pepper, dill and pole bean seeds to give away and have been rushing to get them ready in their little packages.  There’s 10 seeds in each package.  Look at how cute they are:

I bought the plastic baggies from the dollar store and measured the inside pouch area to help me create the labels.  Last year, I printed labels on stickers and stuck them to the top of the baggie which was expensive and annoying to get straight on the baggie.  This year I decided to print on paper and cut them out to stick in the baggie.  Genius!  Here’s my Word document I’ve been frantically working on this evening:

I found the pictures on an image website and I downloaded two types of font: Hand of Sean and Harabara.  Looking at the printed papers, I think I should have skipped the Hand of Sean font however it’s too late now.  I also skipped the Notes field that I included in last year’s seed table giveaway – it’s too much to do in this little time I have.

Of course I didn’t have enough baggies and will have to stop by the store to pick some more up this evening.  I still have a bunch more seed packages to break down into 10-seed piles:

More from Seedy Saturday tomorrow from 10 AM – 3 PM at the Ron Kolbus Lakeside Centre in Ottawa!