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

[applestar]

This Utyonok decided it was not going to remain a stunted mutant

Close up of the new growing shoot

I wonder if giving it soaked alfalfa water was what helped?

[applestar]

Absolutely NOTHING to do with seed starting, I know ... But had to share a photo of this phal orchid in bloom right now. Only two flowers on this stalk -- but I guess that's why they're 4.5" across (huge to me -- never seen them that big before)

[applestar]

I've been neglecting them and procrastinating due to an ad hoc seed pre-germinating experiment and the tomato seedlings were starting to lose color. It's now or never tomato uppotting day

I've already been using cut off bottles and beverage cups for random up pots, but this year's main container will be 1/2 gal rice milk containers laying on their long sides. Exactly 6 fit per standard tray.

I planted three per box for 18 solid per tray. They look embarrassingly raggedy -- I hope I'll be able to post recovery photos in a week or so

Smaller seedlings were rearranged from 8 per to 6 per box on flat side, four boxes per tray. You can see one of those with 4 eggplant seedlings staggered in the box in the 3rd photo above. One of the seedlings must have lost a major taproot because it started to get wilty, so I had to put it in an ICU with a cut off bottle. When I took the photo, the wilty leaf had filled out, so it's feeling better.

Now that they are uppotted, I'll be able to start hardening them off without danger of them drying out.

[applestar]

Here are some of the peppers and a squash:

bottle tomato seedling incubator update:

Coyote

Matt's Wild Cherry

Zluta Kytice

[applestar]

The tomato seedlings are coming along and mostly looking better. These have been outside hardening off:

Last four nights, they needed to be tucked in for the night:

Thus Faelan's First Snow with regular leaf is starting to show it's own variegation next to the potato leaf Variegated PL x Striped Big Cheef:

Variegated PL x Striped Big Cheef and Faelan's First Snow

Cool looking high antho (purple) foliage varieties:
Amethyst Cream:

Front Row left: Amethyst Cream

Brazilian Beauty:

Front Row left: Brazilian Beauty

Front Row right in the 3-pak: Brazilian Beauty

Dancing with Smurfs:

Front and Back Rows right in 6 pak: Dancing with Smurfs (2)

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[Juliuskitty]

They really are coming along, aren't they? It won't be long now.

[applestar]

Last night should be the last drop in the temp (41°F this morning) for now. Lows in the 50's for the next week.
But the soil temp in the NE of the house clay subsoil beds where I am planting tomatoes and squash is still only 50°F. ...so...

Warming the tomato and squash beds

[rainbowgardener]

Looking good!

You just stimulated my brain to an that I should have had years ago. I always have trouble keeping things labelled. I don't want to buy enough label sticks for 500 plants, so I try to keep things grouped in trays and have one or two labels per tray. But some how in all the moving around processes they go through, it is easy for stuff to get mixed up.

I looked at your boxes with the variety names marked on it and it finally occurred to me that I could do that. My little pots are mostly black, but it wouldn't be that hard or expensive to put a masking tape strip on each pot and mark on that. Wow! Why did it take me all these years. Unfortunately it is too late for this year, because not too much is left in pots, but hopefully I will remember this for next year.

[applestar]

Oh yeah that would be much easier and cheaper.
I put duct tape on the black ones. I tried using white paint pen, too. That works really well -- too well in fact. It won't come off. On grey and green plastic pots, I just write directly with the garden marker. And ever since I found out they come off like a charm with rubbing alcohol, I just wipe off and write on new labels.

I'm refusing to make up permanent labels (triple folded aluminum tape "engraved" with ball point pen) until they are planted in the garden.... For the container plants, I really like the orange plastic spoons though. DH gets them from his favorite ice cream shop. They are re-usable as well.

Another thing DH gets -- rice pudding that comes in these cups because the kids like them.

Doesn't it just SHOUT soil blocker? It even has a dimple in the middle for sowing seed. So. I tried it out:

I cut off the rim, which made it flex easily, then wet the mold, lightly stuffed it with pre-moistened mix (not vigorously shoving in the mix like with the commercial blocker with a plunger), then gently unmolded it by squeezing and flexing (just like jello mold)

I sowed some of the pre-germinated cucumber seeds in them. It seems like the perfect size. I also put some too long fermented tomato seeds that started to sprout in the in the middle one. Cucumbers are already starting to sprout:

[Cola82]

Hah! That's handy! And adorable.

I love the orange spoons, too.

[McKinney88]

Question. I have started some tomato seeds last week. Is it ok to leave them outside once they sprout? We average about 80 deg F right now. I have one barely up right now and wasn't sure if it was ok to set them out all day while I'm at work. All my other plant seeds I leave outside and they are doing good.

[applestar]

IMHO they should be OK as long as you have them in deep enough containers of potting mix that they won't dry out in the sun and heat while you are away (you should make sure when you are home, before leaving them unsupervised ) and they are not in drip trays when it rains (a lot) that they would drown. If they start out in full sun then they will naturally acclimate to the amount of sun as they grow.

However, they would be fragile in extreme weather, but if you bring them inside for a consecutive number of days during foul weather, they will need to acclimate to the sun and air movement.

Only other issues I can think of are pests specific to tomato seedlings and general nuisance like birds or squirrels digging them up.

[applestar]

Hahaha it took me a while to find where I posted about those pudding cup soil blockers.
Here's an update photo of the cukes and tomatoes soilblocks: