2016 -- starting seeds and cuttings for the new season

[applestar]

Sometime last fall, we bought some HUGE Asian pears that were packaged in clear clamshell package kind of like egg cartons except much bigger. They were delicious and I thought it might be fun to see if I could grow them from seeds, so I pushed them into a pot on the patio outside that had become vacant in the winter freeze

L:Today,nI noticed they had sprouted

R: A trifoliate orange "flying dragon" seedling had sprouted inside, but I think it will be Ok outside

[applestar]

Here's an example of how the peas pre-sprouted in the clear egg cartons turned out. I planted all of the rest today since for the last three or four days, they were needing twice daily care to make sure they didn't get dried out in the sun or drowned when it rained. I'll post elsewhere with more details about how I'm planting them this year.

[imafan26]

I went to the garden today to drop off three more trays of seedlings. Someone had turned my sprinklers off and half the bench looks really bad. Peppers, fennel, kale, thai basil that was ready for the sale next week probably won't make it. I watered the plants and hoped for the best. I guess I will find out tomorrow what will come back. I transplanted more dill and I potted up some spearmint. I forgot to take my miracle grow sprayer with me so I will have to remember to do it tomorrow. Just as well, it would not have made sense to water dead peppers anyway. I was hoping to pot more of the peppers up, but I may be cleaning the bench instead. There is nothing more I can do about it anyway. I'll just have to plant more seeds for next month. I may be able to get more quick cutting of spearmint and maybe some daylilies potted up. They root fast so they may be ready for the sale.

I have another broccoli head to pick and another one that is starting to bloom already. I waited so long for them and now, I can't get to them fast enough. I picked another handfull of greenbeans, and the cherry tomatoes are falling off the vine. I haven't had time to get to them either, and it requires some acrobatics to get to some of them since the broccoli is behind the beets and the komatsuna, tatsoi, and cucumber are in front of the tomatoes which decided it liked to sprawl on the ground instead of climb the trellis.

I have to make some room in the garden soon for the lettuce and bok choy, and pot up the peppers.

Today was my green day and the cans were empty! I haven't had the time or energy to work on my own yard. I did actually pull a 5 gallon bucket of nut sedge but that went in the garbage not the greenwaste can.

[applestar]

Wow, what a bummer about the dried out plants.

[imafan26]

Yeah. Apparently they worked on an irrigation valve on Wednesday. But, the timer was set for 0 minutes and nobody knows who messed with it. There would not be any reason to touch the timer if they work on the irrigation system, and really no reason to change the program.

[applestar]

Last minute addition to this year's snow peas lineup

[applestar]

Well, my "rhubarb" turned out to be either red or aurora orach. (I think I did one of those [two things in the same seed starter shortcut] and ONLY orach sprouted ) I'm planting them out now so they can provide some salad interest.



I did start some more -- this time ONLY rhubarb seeds though in a community flat BUT between two rows of nasturtiums so no way to mistake.

[imafan26]

I made more lavender cuttings and I planted garden chives, long purple eggplant, applegreen eggplant, borage, EZ leaf celery, and transplanted poblano peepers and some long green egglplant.

I planted out the zucchini into the garden. I was a bit late, it is already trying to make fruit. This zucchini is parthenon which does not need to be polinated. I am hoping to get a better yied with parthenocarpic fruit.

The sunburst melon seeds sprouted and I planted 2 gourd seedlings at the community garden along with a lot of won bok.

Last week I transplanted the overgrown lettuce and won bok cabbage as well as a swiss chard and early girl tomato. This week they looked like most of them survived.

[applestar]

I'm going to pre-germinate corn and start corn trasplants again this year -- looks like this weekend or next week
Subject: 2014 pre-germinating/sprouting experiment Peas, Corn, Curcs

As I mentioned in the other thread, I decided to pre-germinate the corn before planting this spring.

[applestar]

I have 2 or three different varieties of corn to grow this year. I'm going to try to be careful to stagger planting time for them and will also grow in beds that are located on two opposite sides of the house. I'm also learning to use isolation tassel and shoot/cob bags for corn seed saving.

First up, I started soaking my Mirai 350BC seeds yesterday. After soaking all morning, I drained the water and put them in my seed sprouter, and have been rinsing them at approx. 8 hour intervals.

...just a little while ago, I decided to give them another rinse, and was tsk- tsking that these shriveled up corn kernels had NOT plumped up with water and that some of them are STILL not sinking to the bottom, wondering if they are duds since I tend to think good seeds should sink. Then did a double-take because I realized one of the floaters had a rather long radicle/seedroot growing already. -- Time to sow!

I started sowing them in the 1/2 gal rice milk carton. For this, I stand it up on one of the long narrow side like this, which provides 4.5 inch depth. I can comfortably fit two 10 seed rows = 20 per carton, and could squeeze in another 4 in between for even two dozen per carton.

-- today, there were actually only 16 germinated seeds, though. So I left space for 4 more seeds.

[applestar]

Peas update Subject: Applestar's 2016 Garden

The peas were slow to come up even though they had been pre-germinated and in some cases sprouted -- I guess the ground was still cold -- that I was afraid something had gone wrong, but they are now almost all up -- I GENERALLY don't get this kind of solid rows of peas when I don't pre-germinate/sprout. Elephant garlic are doing really well, too.

[applestar]

Some of these are up

[applestar]

Found four more had germinated, so was able to fill the remaining spots for Mirai 350BC

...Can you see the two sprouts that are poking out? Yes, it's that fast.

Soaked and started pre-germinating Black Aztec corn yesterday.

[applestar]

...and here we are -- the first batch of Mirai 350Bc sweet corn seedlings are ready to plant out
(I just need to harden them off -- or actually today is a good day to plant since it's overcast... But I hear Mirai can be a wimp in the cold, so I guess I'll just keep this with the tomato seedlings.


Soaked and pre sprouted another batch of Mirai350BC which were ready to sow today, and started soaking the Kandy Korn x Glass Gem F1

[imafan26]

Potted up borage, Hawaiian chilies, and Fushimi sweet peppers. Beets have sprouted, mesclun is a little spotty, but I hope it more will sprout.