Finally! Off to a haphazard start for the 2014 season

[baileysup]

This makes me happy! Thanks for all the great posts applestar, and rainbowgardener It's exciting to see all of the seedlings coming up, and getting ready for spring!

[lexusnexus]

We're expecting more s*^& (grrr) next week. Enough already!

[applestar]

Yeah, but daytime high will be in the 40's or above for the most part, and above mid-20's overnight lows. So, I'm going to start hardening off my cold leafies (lettuce, Swiss chard, etc.)

Also to note -- yesterday when I checked (since a few days), the gallon jug wintersown tatsoi and at least one of the cabbages had started to sprout so I moved the jug out of the sheltered front porch to the front of the garage where it will get some sun and removed the cap. -- I hope that was the correct thing to do. I have very little experience with wintersowing.

[applestar]

Looks like this right now:

...I may have been late opening the cap. I think I see some signs of dampening off. I'm not surprised there's no sign of the Red Wethersfield because they were old seeds from 2011 or so and I believe onion seeds don't keep well.

[applestar]

This makes me happy! Thanks for all the great posts applestar, and rainbowgardener It's exciting to see all of the seedlings coming up, and getting ready for spring!

Thanks for the positive comment! I appreciate hearing that people are enjoying my ramblings.... . What I like to do is try to do things so you could see that anyone could garden (I sound like that chef in Ratatouille ... ). You don't have to have special equipment or professional set up. But I like to try things using all kinds of available tools in between to see what degree of set up is minimally necessary and how much you can get away without.

Good luck with your garden, too.

[applestar]

First time growing Lavender angustifolia seedlings, and the gorgeous Bolivian Rainbow pepper seedling

[Cola82]

Huh, I've been wondering if I should start the lavender seeds indoors. Is that a good way to do it?

[rainbowgardener]

I think so, just because lavender is very slow to get started. It benefits from cold stratifying - planting and then refrigerating for three weeks. Then it needs heat and light for germination and takes 2-3 weeks to germinate. And then the little seedling is very slow growing.

I think it is hard to provide the appropriate conditions of warmth, moisture, etc for as long as is needed, if you plant the seed outdoors.

By the end of my season, the lavender will still be a seedling, maybe 6" tall. Then it goes dormant and then in the second year it will turn in to a real plant.

applestar, your lavender looks quite healthy. When did you plant it?

[applestar]

Glad to hear that, thanks! I wish more of them had sprouted, but I'll take what I got. There are two seedlings in the picture and a third smaller one hidden behind the sidewall of the berry container.

My lavender notes:
Lavender English Munstead
02/05/14 1pt berry container V8 (unheated garage) to stratify until 2/23
2/23 top of octarium (indoor - room temp)
2/27 added plastic wrap/moved to WP (indoor plant shelves) above 30"T-5 fixture for extra heat
02/28/14 first sprouted 23d from sowing

I did sow a good number of seeds -- maybe 24 or so? There were three more that sprouted but died.

I'm thinking of trying to propagate some branch cuttings from the existing plant outside --- I've vague memory that I should have done that back in February though... or was that the schedule for root cuttings?

[applestar]

Upblocked 50 more tomato seedlings to 2" mini soilblocks (well I think one of them was a marigold and a few eggplants, too )

Some of them -mostly ones that germinated 3/16- had massive roots already, so a little late. But they are mostly still in seed leaves -- I was initially only going to upblock the ones with true leaves, but it occurred to me to try lifting a few of the earliest ones. It seems like they have been growing more roots than tops -- I'm thinking probably because of the lower overall growing temperatures.

The cut-off top of a vitamin bottle works great for adding a little extra soil mix after pushing the microblocks in the hole.

Maps of growing tomato seedlings so far (the miniblock map would normally be scaled up, but I wanted to get them all on one page)

[applestar]

I was just looking at last year's thread to compare
viewtopic.php?p=291650#p291650

-- yeah, a big difference... But last year, I was struggling with huge plants that had to be shuttled out and in towards the end, so maybe this will work out better. Not many super early harvests this year though, I guess.

[applestar]

This is what happens if you give up on a tray of seeds and leave them in a salad box germination chamber atop a TV box without checking for three days in a dimly lit bedroom because you are too busy to watch TV

3 day old sprouted/neglected seedling

...trouble is, this one turned out to be a Faelan's First Snow -- a variegated Cherokee Purple segregate that I particularly wanted to grow every sprouted seedling because the level of expressed variegation is quite variable between plants.

-- so --

Faelan's First Snow -- will it make it?

-- and after 4 hours under the lights --

It's greening up a bit :)

[rainbowgardener]

beautiful job of saving the tiny seedling!

I got busy and managed to not water all the seedlings under the lights for something like 36 hrs. Most of it was fine but the stuff on the heating pads that dries out faster was totally dried out and some of it was all collapsed from wilting. I watered everything from the bottom and the top to rewet the soil and almost all of it came right back.

[applestar]

Haven't talked much about my other peppers because they have been failing to germinate -- most likely too cold since last year's successful germination took place in 80°-85°F conditions which was not happening this year. . I re-seeded Cuneo and Aji Crystal just one more time. Donkey Ears germinated after the 2nd seeding. But I'm out of three of the unsprouted variety seeds. I'll keep them in the germination chamber on the heat mat, but I'm not hopeful.

Here are my pepper seedlings so far:

Anaheim peppers

Up/Repotted peppers and the recovering Faelan's First Snow

Those Anaheims did sprout from the initial early sowing and are farthest along, already growing roots out of the 2" miniblocks.

I removed the filter paper from the K-cups and re-potted the little peppers yesterday. If you look closely, the rescued Farlan's First Snow is lined up with the little pepper seedlings.

My conclusion about the re-purposed K-cups is that you definitely need to remove the filter paper before repurposing the K-cups because the soil mix is suspended in the filter paper inside the K-cup holding only about 2/3 of the total volume, and these had barely started to break down. The pepper roots had entangled in the filter paper or penetrated depending on their root vigor -- Anaheims have vigorous taproots. I lost some precious roots until I figured out that the trick is to trim the filter paper off the cups along the edge first.

I'm going to have to deal with the celery seedlings in w/filter K-cups at some point.

[applestar]

More updates -- please feel free to comment if you think of something or have constructive criticism because I'm always looking for ways to improve techniques.

Wintersown gallon jug -- took a peek today and the spinach row has started to sprout!

Wintersown apple cider gallon jug

[applestar]

I posted this in the 2014 tomato variety thread, but am copying it here to keep things current
-- latest tomato seedling map

[Juliuskitty]

beautiful job of saving the tiny seedling!

I got busy and managed to not water all the seedlings under the lights for something like 36 hrs. Most of it was fine but the stuff on the heating pads that dries out faster was totally dried out and some of it was all collapsed from wilting. I watered everything from the bottom and the top to rewet the soil and almost all of it came right back.

Sometimes that is the best thing possible in the end because that dry to wilt stage can make them sprout an incredible root system. I know a professional tomato plant seller who does that to his seedlings at least twice before selling, on purpose. He says people come back telling him there is more vigor with his plants then anyone else's plants, and he gets them to buy from him every year because of it.

I would love to hear if the survivors end up being very strong for you too.

[applestar]

Ha! So it's a good thing if you forget to water once in a while? That's good to know.

Seriously, though, I think something to watch out for is not to over-coddle the babies. Occasionally miscalculating the amount needed and overwatering is one of my worst habits.

I'll have to remind myself of this technique. Thanks!

...another is grouping the seedlings by height so they can be positioned just below the lights. I'm looking at a (thankfully mini) tray this morning that has a couple of compact/dwarf varieties mixed with regular and they are now half the height of the ones towering above them. The difference in growth patterns is very apparent in the early seedlings. That big tray of 50 will eventually be divided into two trays as the rest of the microblocks are upblocked.

[rainbowgardener]

Glad things are going well for you.

Is it possible for you to post a couple pix of your Anaheim chilis? Or maybe even comparisons with the Anaheim chilis and some bell pepper plants? I'm still trying to sort out which of my peppers are which after getting the labels mixed up (choices are California Wonder bell peppers and Anaheim chilis)

[applestar]

Hmm... I'm sure others have bell peppers in better condition than mine -- they are suffering from aphids and are currently getting lots of attention but the LB's so this might not help but here you go:

Anaheim seedlings

Overwintered Golden Summer Hybrid bell pepper

Another view of the bell

[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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