Seeds started!

[rainbowgardener]

Tomatoes planted!! Yesterday I planted my 7 varieties of tomatoes, plus lobelia and aegeratum. The tomatoes are VERY crowded in the little cells and will need to be moved off the heat mat soon after they sprout, at which point they will fill up a lot of space under my lights...

It's all your fault, you know, THG friends you keep feeding my addiction!

[applestar]

My Stump of te World tomato out of the very late-late group are the first ones up.
On the right are Carpet of Snow white and Royal Carpet purple alyssums in the back and Snow Crown hybrid Cauliflower in the front. The OP Early Snowball in the same pan haven't sprouted yet -- old (2009) seeds 100% failure



Let's all be a little bit
(I'm keeping track of when you are sowing your seeds, rainbow. Can't argue with success! )

[rainbowgardener]

That's a complement, applestar, but I'm not sure how scientific my starting dates are. It depends somewhat on such non-plant related variables as when I have space on the heat mats to put them or (like the anise hyssop that got planted late) when I happen to find the seeds ...

I did deliberately slow the tomatoes down a little. I used to plant them on Valentine's day and although that had a nice little bit of symbolism, I decided it was a little too early. Also the Quaker Meeting where sell off a lot of my extras, has started the last few years having a big plant sale the first Sunday in May. So I slowed some things down to have them not ready too early before that.

[gixxerific]

Good point RBG on starting early. We have all done it heck I have been wathcing you and Apple for years, APple and i were discussing astarting early a few years ago and how everything was too big in house and very ready to go out.

I am starting dwarf tomatoes now. Soon all esle will follow. Just got onions in the other day, as soon as it is warm and dry enough they will go in. That is the only thing I bought this year seed wise.

Do you need anything RBG? I have a ton of stuff you may want, veggies and all that, ask Apple. I was given a HUGE box of seeds to distribute.

Good luck RBG

[rainbowgardener]

Making progress! Started potting up celery and the first peppers (the bells seem to be a bit ahead of the chili peppers, though they were planted at the same time). Planted nicotiana.

Next weekend I will plant roselle and malabar spinach, neither of which I have grown before, so I'm not too certain of the timing. Then everything I start indoors will be planted except all the squashes. (I seem to have acquired more varieties of squash than I usually do also, but that's to try to find something the vine borers won't kill.) Squash doesn't get planted for at least a month, so I am good, except I have no idea where all this stuff will go once it is all sprouted and needing more space!

Generous offer, gixx, but I have very limited garden space and already don't know where I am going to put everything.

[applestar]

Ask him for "a little packet of carrot seeds" and see what happens.

[gixxerific]

Ask him for "a little packet of carrot seeds" and see what happens.

Just ty me!

Man you already have peppers up. I need to get out and get another heat mat today. My old one died and almost took my house with it. Gonaa be crazy here soon.

Good luck RBG though knowing you, your garden will be spectacular as usual.

[rainbowgardener]

Currently have 11 trays of seeds and seedlings under the lights and 3 more going in and out getting hardened off. Soon to be more...

[rainbowgardener]

Just wanted to link this in here, it's my last year's seed starting thread, which I finally managed to find just by paging through the Seed Starting index pages.

http://www.helpfulgardener.com/forum/v ... 798#238798

So what I wrote here from last year says

1/29/12 planted parsley, dill, fennel, coleus, canterbury bells, spearmint, broccoli, rosemary, thyme

2/1 petunia, celery, snapdragon

2/5 peppers, impatiens, red basil, salvia, parsley

2/11 marigold

2/17 tomatoes, nicotiana, summer savory, cardinal climber

2/19 OUTDOORS planted onions, scallions, radish, lettuce, spinach, swiss chard (very early warm up last year, nothing planted outdoors yet this year)

2/24 alyssum, sage

3/4 nasturtium, millet, hyacinth bean vine

3/22 squash

3/24 more squash varieties, moonflower, statice

[rainbowgardener]

For comparison this year:

1/19/13 planted broccoli, cabbage, summer savory, canterbury bells, parsley, dill, alyssum, celery, bunny tails grass

1/27 petunias and marigolds

2/1 anise hyssop, red and purple basil, bell and chili peppers

2/11 impatiens and coleus

2/15 chamomile and green basil

2/22 tomatoes, lobelia, ageratum

2/24 nicotiana

(planned) 3/2 roselle and malabar spinach

end of march, beginning of April various squashes, cardinal climber, hyacinth bean vine, moonflower.

Turn the lights off by the first of May!

[rainbowgardener]

Most everything seems to be doing fine in my homemade potting soil. Probably not quite as big and lush and leafy as they would have been in the Miracle Grow, but quite acceptable.

But now that the peppers are maturing their first true leaves, some of them (interestingly, the chili peppers, but not the bells) are looking kind of chlorotic. Anybody know of some nutrients that chili peppers need more of than bell peppers that might be causing this? Any suggestions for organic additives to my potting mix to help correct it? I started dissolving a few of the guinea pig (mostly alfalfa) pellets in the watering water to see if that helps.

(Remember, I can't use fish products, because the cat will kill the plants looking for it.)

[applestar]

You still haven't started an AACT set up? All you need is a good aquarium aerator pump. I'm running a Whisper10 with a 2" stone in a 2 gal bucket almost constantly. Adding coffee grounds, left over tea and coffee, juice, sprout rinsing water, etc. Occasionally a dollop of organic unsulphured molasses (it says " a good source of potassium, calcium, and iron" on the label), rarely rinsing out DH's finished bottles of soda (a tiny bit of phosphorus... Eh, does potassium benzoate preservative add potassium or harm the microbes?). You should see it go nuts after adding edamame blanching water (no salt) or vermicompost leacheate.

I use this water diluted by 1/2 for my plants and seedlings depending on what's in it.

In no particular schedule, I clean out the bucket and brew vermicompost tea with molasses.

About once a month, I've been making weak Dr. Earth tomato fertilizer tea and citrus fertilizer tea (i.e. NOT according to package directions). These are then diluted about 1:2 or 1:3. These can be a bit stinky and can get offensively stinky if you don't use it up right away. First time I made that mistake, I had to take the malodorous dregs in the bucket out to the garage -- I added some lime and covered the dregs with with cedar shavings to mask the smell (I was thinking humanure bucket toilet.) After a month, it doesn't smell any more. (Yeah, I could have take it it to the compost pile, but I was experimenting.... )

[applestar]

Hot peppers need less water than bell peppers....

[rainbowgardener]

OK... thanks for the reminder. This may be the time when I bite the bullet and try making AACT. I actually have the equipment for it now, since we dismantled the aquarium that used to have goldfish. I will have to go back and re-read our 30 page monster AACT thread. I've been using worm castings (but I didn't have a lot) in the potting soil and worm bin leachate in the water, but dilute. I'm thinking the soil the peppers are in was before I started trying your idea of the alfalfa pellets as an additive. I will be more careful with the water for the chilis. I never grew hot peppers before.

Thanks for all the help!

[rainbowgardener]

So, I've been using my homemade potting soil for long enough now to get a sense of how it's going. I have to say I don't like it as well as the MG potting soil - but not enough worse, to go back to supporting the chemical industry.

It is not as light, though that may be just a question of adjusting the ingredients/ proportions.

I am having more trouble maintaining the right water balance. It seems like my homemade stuff doesn't wick the water up as well, so it can be too wet at the bottom and too dry at the top.

Things are not growing as well. Chili peppers are still a bit chlorotic, despite adding alfalfa to the soil mix and alfalfa and worm bin leachate to the water and sometimes coffee grounds. Nothing else is chlorotic, but none of it is growing quite as fast or lush as I am used to (and no, I still haven't gotten it together to do the AACT, maybe this weekend).

Sigh... I was hoping to love my homemade stuff, but I can't say that.