Finally! Off to a haphazard start for the 2014 season

[applestar]

...I did mention it was raining for the most of the day, right?...

Faelan's First Snow seems to have recovered completely, so if you have scrawny light starved tomato seedlings that you want to save, you might want to give the above technique a try

Recovered Faelan's First Snow tomato seedling

I discovered another one this morning, but this time, it's not really my fault. I had a seedling that was snaking around with just the stem showing in the germination chamber -- no root hairs, no seed leaves, not even helmet head (tightly closed seed husk).... {actually you can see it in the photo in this post}

Here's a close up. What a goofy sprout!

This morning, it finally pulled its "head" out enough to show me which end was "up" so I gently teased the seed leaves out of the soilblock:

It turned out to be Indian Zebra Burson strain, reputed to be great tasting variety, so I deep planted it in a K-cup just like FFS:

Here's Faelan's First Snow leaving the pepper seedling tray and the heating mat:

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...and Indian Zebra Burson's taking it's place:

[Juliuskitty]

Hi Applestar, I am enjoying seeing the interesting germination pictures. How do you have the self control to not "help" that FFS out and remove the little seed coat. I wouldn't be able to resist!
So glad to see that it will likely survive, indeed thrive. I know how it is when you have a coveted variety, so much anticipation, and losing one of those seedlings is like dashed hopes.
I am living vicariously in this thread.

[applestar]

I know -- I used to fiddle with those seed shells stuck on the leaves. At one time, I put a drop of water/aa compost tea/diluted liquid fertilizer on every single one of them every few hours to soften them and boost them. But now I just let them be.

This year, I'm giving them a pipette of alfalfa water to give them a boost, and some of them will respond, and if the ones holding hands seem to be struggling or preventing the true leaves from properly emerging, I might try plying them apart after their morning misting, but for the most part, they can get by on their own.

I sometimes like to try things that are not always considered the best way, just to see for myself what happens and see if I can figure out a way to recover/revive them mwahahaha

[applestar]

These tomato seedlings in 2" miniblocks have been relegated to the bottom shelf which doesn't have as much light output as the upper two shelves.

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Inevitable consequence of rather weak growth was so apparent that I took pity on them and sent them out to enjoy the last couple hours of sun in the driveway, atop the recycle bucket:

These balsam that I started too early was in even sorrier state since I banished them to the window side where the least luminescent t12 light barely covered. So even though they do get the last hour or so of setting sun, oh, so weak! I had to stick a folded junk mail along one side to keep them from flopping over... Then the two on the other side had flopped by the time I went out to check on them -- they weren't going to stand back up so I had to pot them up in the two drink cups you see behind the card.

I'll probably pot them all up tomorrow, and hopefully they can handle it in the V8 nursery with these others. The tomatoes here are the Parks Whopper F2's my MIL started a couple of weeks earlier than I started my tomato seeds:

V8 nursery tomatoes

Lettuce, Swiss Chard Ford Hook, Pak Choi (supposed to be RED choi but only % were red), Root parsley Fakir, Cardinal Chard

Overwintered greens and stuff. Leeks, onions, garlic all grown from "bottoms"

Yu Choi Sum

Souvenir Swiss chard seeds: variety Feurio

Got some more stuff done -- Sent out a few more garage overwintered dormant stuff outside -- bonsai wannabe pomegranate (2), citrus (2), rosemary, jalapeño and two other peppers.... Pruned part of the Enterprise apple tree (so late! I have to get ALL the apples and pears done !) Planted seedling spinach, kale, and pak choi in patio windowboxes.... Prepped the narrow area under the trellis in the Kids Garden and sowed Alderman Telephone peas, Champion radishes, and Danvers carrots. Accidentally dug up a couple of Little Marvel peas planted in the patio windowboxes 3/28, and they had germinated -- carefully buried them again. But the trellis corner in the Sunflower House didn't look like they had moved much. Soil temp there was 38° F.

[applestar]

Oh, here are two views of those 50 two inch miniblocks -- not really sufficient light coverage with this set up either, but if I start hardening them to sunlight on nice days, they should turn out OK

Did you notice the lavenders have been ousted to one side? I want to uppot them because the big two seedlings have actually grown long roots down into the underlying sand... But there are now two tiny little NEW seedlings in there, so I'm waiting for them to grow true leaves. ...and in the mean time, they are all starting to elongate and lean.
In the 2nd photo, Second row, 5th from the right is Chibikko.
FYI the most recent map is in this post: viewtopic.php?p=326364#p326364

[applestar]

So, here are the three recovered patients. FFS is ready to be uppotted! What do you think?

[applestar]

With all the different tomato varieties I'm growing, there a a few standout seedlings. I drew attention to the Chibikko seedling among the others earlier. Another variety that keeps catching my eyes is Brazilian Beauty. I have other varieties with antho in on fruit skin and foliage, but I didn't know this one did too and to this level. The fruit is supposed to look kind of like Ananas Noire but flavor reviews I've read were "great" and "so-so". I can' t wait to try for myself.

Brazilian Beauty #1

Brazilian Beauty #2

[applestar]

I posted this elsewhere:
Subject: Spring after a VERY long winter!

In the front yard, I was overcome by sense of weirdness... and finally recognized the source: The crocuses I planted along the edge of the. Japanese Maple/wild strawberry island bed years ago are all up and blooming in a nice unbroken row. -- WHY is this weird? Because every spring, the crocus leaves are chomped inches from the ground as soon as they come up, and the flowers, if they manage to grow out the buds at all before being beheaded are soon chewed down to the ground again. I honestly didn't know that all those crocuses were still alive. I wonder what happened to all the rabbits...?

Well, I shouldn't have spared a thought for those bunnies because it turns out they are doing perfectly fine.

I planted my broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, and cardinal chard... What was it a couple of days ago?

Before

Today, it looked like this:

After

I shouldn't have exuberantly weeded the Creeping Charlie under the gate fences because I think that gave them the idea to dig under. I put rocks to block for now, but will have to fortify the fencing around this former Sunflower & House, especially since I was going to plant greens here this year to rotate after last year's Winter Tomato Variety Trial. ...I guess it's just as well that I hadn't prepared the other 2/3 of this bed and planted the lettuce, Yu Choi Sum, Red/Pak Choi, celery, and three kinds of Swiss chard. I still have kale but those were it for my haphazard broccoli, cauliflower, and kohlrabi that gave me so much trouble starting seeds this winter. I may direct sow some more kohlrabi seeds though, since they mature quickly, and I love the color of purple kohlrabi seedlings. With some luck, I will have cabbage and spinach, etc. seedlings from the Wintersown gallon jug to plant later.

[applestar]

This is not exactly a new seedling, but I'll stick it in here for lack of a better spot

This is either Bull's Blood beet or Cardinal Chard that I started back in fall and overwintered in the garage V8 Nursery. I slipped it out of the 4 inch container and was going to uppot it... but for some reason there was no suitable container to be found in the garage.

I was wandering around all over the garage with the naked rootball in my hand, and after looking in all the likely places for the third time (and vetoing the idea of going outside to search), I looked at the relatively solid rootball I was holding and thought it looked a lot like a soilblock. So I decided to go ahead and experiment by leaving it out like this

If the theory behind soil blocks works, then the exposed roots should just be air pruned, and it will grow dense network of fibrous roots inside the soil block. I'm compensating for what is likely nutrient depleted medium by watering with weakly fertilized water.

[applestar]

Very excited to notice this seedling today.
It's one of the variegated varieties, already showing nice white splashes in the true leaves:

Variegated PL x Striped Big Cheef

Also have a couple of mutants. Not as many as last year, thank goodness.

Utyonok with fused growing point

Rumplestiltskin with thickened seed leaves

Note that these two are dwarf varieties and last year's defective tomato seedlings were all dwarf varieties, too. I'm hearing that this could be a recessive gene mutation, which would make sense that more tendency will occur in dwarfs.

[Juliuskitty]

What a neat picture of that variegated one. You are so lucky! Thanks for posting these.

[applestar]

I feel so too. I can't get over these variegated as well as chartreuse and purple foliage tomatoes. And breeders are working to improve flavor, size, color and shapes of the fruits, too. This one with the Striped Big Cheef parentage has potential for really good flavored fruits.

...Now about this morning... Cover your ears... AAAAARRRRRGGGGGGHHHHH ! ! !

(e-hem) excuse me

One of the 24" t5 tubes didn't turn on and it is black on the ends. Yep. It's a goner.
I still only have a few of these t5 fluorescents, but it seems to me they fail without much of a warning. Has that been the case for those of you who are switching over from t12's and t8's or embarking fresh with t5's?

Worse yet, I. Was. *thinking* of buying spare replacement tubes, but hadn't ordered them yet. So now, I'll have to go find one locally and pay the exorbitant price for it.

For some reason, they are no longer listed as stocked at the local big box stores -- only on-line. I may have to go to a pet store chain and get theirs which will cost even more.

[applestar]

OK temporarily solved the problem by putting the tomato seedlings (the 50 2" block tray) that was under it by putting it outside on my hardening off table.

I am playing catch-up with all the overgrown seedlings (instead of working on the garden outside like I really should be I think it must be the high tree pollen I'm getting alerts about -- just feeling very sluggish. ) So uppotted some tomatoes and uppotted the lavender.

Ended up with four pots but there IS a fifth tiny seedling that I couldn't separate at the base of one of the big two seedlings. More excited about the lavender since this is my first time growing from seeds

English Lavender Munstead

I am so enjoying working with these seedlings. Just casually touching or brushing wafts strong lavender fragrance. Holding gently while potting up was almost intoxicatingly refreshing.

[applestar]

Red and green Choi that didn't get eaten by the "wascawy wabbit" because I planted them in this "window box" (not sure if I would call one made of fiber window box). The onions are the Egyptian Walking Onions I planted back in fall. The container was sitting against the house on that 5 gallon bucket back there to give it a "modicum" of protection. But I moved it out on the hose keeper since March.

I should clean it up a bit -- those sticks are what's left of the late sown basil that were growing there last fall. I'm trying to only minimally disturb the soil because I want to see if the basils will self/reseed.

[applestar]

Wanna see how that Faelan's First Snow turned out?

Faelan's First Snow before uppotting