Need support group encouragement

[tompoe]

It's end of January, here in central Minnesota. I have small area for grow light plant development, containers for starting seedlings, and large kitty litter containers for mature plants like tomatoes. Finally, there's a raised bed and yard space for planting when the frost leaves. What's been hard to actually do, is to get into a mindset that there's really no reason not to be planting seeds every day of the year. Anyone else finding themselves hesitating, and not enjoying the ability to start seedlings every day, or every week, or every month?

[applestar]

Tak a peek in this thread and see my answer

HELLO, MY NAME IS APPLESTAR, AND I AM AN ENABLER....

Subject: 2014-15 Winter Indoor Tomatoes... + sugar snaps and cucumber

Now, HERE is a sad photo of the Maglia Rosa in the KFC bucket. It has mostly succumbed to the TRM attack. I've given up on it and am trying some Sugar Sprint snap peas and Solstice broccoli, as well as a scattering on cilantro in the container (I'll prick out the broccoli once they grow true leaves though it looks as though they needed to be closer to the light ). You can see the white container that contained the a Yellow Dwarf in the back after the fruits were harvested. The right hand photo shows the Dwarf Arctic Rose with the small fruits, also going down after ripening this tiny harvest....

image.jpg

...but I'm hoping to turn things around for the rest of the struggling and still healthy Winter Indoor Tomatoes by releasing ladybugs and -hopefully- green lacewings (GLWs). Documenting the process in this other thread: Subject: Embrace Your INNER APE –dealing with APHIDS >> got ladybugs

The small paper bags and folded papers in the above photos contain some of the GLW eggs that are expected to hatch out the voracious mite-eating GLW larvae.

[Christian1971]

Hi,
I too live in central mn. Will be my first attempt at gardening. Finally have the land to work with. And no neighbors. Cant say that enough! I too am getting restless to start seeds indoors. But keep occupied with planning, etc. It passes the time. Also will be receiving 20 dahlia bulbs in end of march. So I will be busy, I hope. Not sure how commited I will be. I have never undertaken such projects before. Trying to avoid pouring too much money into garden products. Buying this and that for the garden. Turning something relatively basic, into something way more elaborate than it needs to be. Seeds are cheap so those are fun to buy. Ordered lots of free garden related catalogs. Must have over 30 catalogs. Fun to get! Have a "mud room" which I am turning into my garden lab. I have put a ton of focus on gardening. Maybe too much. Can go a bit overboard. But it keeps me sane.

[rainbowgardener]

There's always something you could be planting indoors! Plant some rosemary, lavender, parsley. All of them are slow to germinate, could be up to a month. Lavender and rosemary are also slow growing. And all of them are pretty cold hardy once they finally are reasonable transplant size.

[GrowMoore]

Hi, I live in upper IL and am anxious to get started as well. This year I am going to try onions from seeds which you need to start now. It's nice to have something to work on while we wait for spring. I know what you mean about starting seeds every month. Last year was my first attempt at growing from seeds and I had high hopes of starting some new ones mid summer. But by then I was busy just keeping up with what I had. I had planted twice as many as I thought I needed, thinking only half of them would come up but they all did! I ended up giving a lot of them away and my friends and neighbors were very happy to get them. It is fun to share. Christian1971 you are right, you can never have too many seed catalogs.

[rainbowgardener]

I dunno.... onions are very slow from seed. I usually plant them in October. They sprout and then go dormant for the winter and start up again in late winter and make onions by July-ish. This is the same schedule as for garlic, which is closely related.

But it is FEBRUARY... If you are talking about starting seeds indoors, if you are in zone5 (I think that would be northern ILL)
you should be starting the cold weather stuff - broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower, kale, celery- and also the stuff I mentioned above that is very slow like lavender, rosemary, parsley, thyme.

If not now, then very soon you would start hot peppers and purple basil, which though warm weather stuff are also pretty slow.

Spring is coming! Time to get started!

[Rairdog]

Every seed started is a learning experience and only makes you better at it. The Dahlias will have to be pulled for winter which is easy to forget or put off. Tulips, Hyacinth, Crocus and Daffodil's are pretty easy if planted in fall. Onion seeds, Rosemary, Thyme and Parsley are on my "needs improved" list...they can be finicky. I have better luck with a mass planting in the garden over indoor starting. Onion bulbs are much easier but they never hit the shelves early enough IMO.

[GrowMoore]

I didn't know that you could plant onion seeds in October, I will have to try that! I did plant some garlic in the fall. I wanted to try the onion seeds because my garden buddy grew some that way last year and they were big and beautiful and I wished I had grown some too. So this is going to be the year I try. I picked two long day types that are supposed to be good for storage. Thanks for the encouragement to get started, I need to hear that. I have the table cleared off and the seeds bought. Just need to start!

[applestar]

I'm trying onions three different ways this year -- I sowed a row of onions last fall -- Walla Walla was the only long day variety that was specifically recommended for fall sowing. I've started another recycled 1/2 gal container of Walla Walla seeds in late January -- these will be planted as early as possible...and I will be planting purchased plants in late March/early April.

I'm not going to grow from sets any more because though easy enough, varieties are limited, they did no better than seed started onions when small enough, and too many of the sets that were too big tended to go to flower.

[GrowMoore]

Applestar I agree, it was the limited varieties in the sets that was one of the reasons I choose to go with seeds. I choose Stuttgarter and Yellow of Parma, ordered from Baker Creek. Thanks for the info about Walla Walla being good for the fall. I will hopefully remember that when the time comes, but that is where my garden journal comes in handy.
I would be interested to find out how it works out with the 3 different ways that you have started onions. I've heard that they are pretty hardy and can take being over seeded.

[applestar]

I will report their progress in this thread
Subject: Growing onion from Seed

I find that the onion seedlings do better when grown in deeper community containers -- 3-4" deep. I use ice cream tubs and 1/2 gal rice milk containers standing on the narrow side panel.

I don't use cell trays, but some people say those work well -- Individually in the small cells or 2-3 per cell in larger ones.