indoor gardening update

 I don't know what it is I've done differently, but my seed sowing endeavors have been fantastically successful this year versus last.  My yarrow are happily growing on in their red party cup plant pots.

The baptisia are beginning to look like something other than bizarre bean sprouts.

I've transplanted the Blue Fescue grass, which was a nightmare.

Normally I start seeds in the little expandable pellets you can buy, but for the fescue I though I'd try a small square tray setup that I had on hand.  I used seed starting coir and everything went fine, until I tried to transplant.  I'm not sure if I should have let the grass grow on a little more to build up a better root system, but the roots were out the bottoms of the tray so I went for it.  It was nearly impossible to dig those little suckers out!  Coir went everywhere but the grass was stuck tight...I tried using a scoop, a little shovel, and my dibber, but all of them just made more of a mess than necessary.  Pushing up through the holes in the bottom of each square did nothing, even though I'd watered the tray well yesterday in hopes the coir would stick together and just slide right out.  

Never again!

Hopefully I haven't damaged the little grasses to the point they don't survive the transplant.

The verbena bonariensis are starting to take off a little.  They're getting a little taller, and I probably should have put less in each pot.  We'll see how they fare - I really don't have enough room to repot them and spread them out.

I picked up that little clip fan at a Goodwill a few weeks ago.  It's battery operated and not too powerful, so it's perfect for giving the seedlings a little movement.  That helps them develop stronger stems and better prepares them for life outside, in the elements.  I'm using rechargeable batteries to save on cost, and clip it to a different rack each day.  I also have a small fan that recharges via USB ports, and will use that on occasion as well.

It's been bitter cold, but the sun is strong and there's lots of melting and settling.  The snow pack now sits at 6.5" deep in the pasture, which isn't much.  We missed a whopper of a storm that ended up staying south of us, but winter isn't over yet.

 The melting snow has revealed some opportunistic mustard greens that have managed to survive the cold and snow.

I'm thinking of cleaning up the area in front of that planter and just sowing as much mustard green seed as possible, and letting it go wild.  Why not?  It's a tricky place to mow and the less weed whacking I need to do, the better.  Toward the back of the planter is the domed tray I was trying to germinate allium seed in.  Since nothing happened in over a month under the grow lights, I decided to put it outside to see if it responded better to winter sowing.  I don't think it will - the seed are probably toast at this point - but how will I know if I don't try? 

I'm looking forward to getting into the hillside garden and checking my garlic and my leeks to see how they've fared over winter, but it looks like it's going to be a little while yet before that happens.  Patience! 

 

a lesson in baptisia seed sowing

 A friend gave me some dried baptisia seed pods last fall, and about a month or so ago I liberated the seeds and refrigerated them.  I planted some on Monday afternoon, and by Wednesday morning they had already sprouted.  This was good and bad - I sowed the seeds in the little coir pellets I use for everything else, and didn't realize how large these seedlings would be.  I didn't push them in deep enough, and out of the 25 or so that germinated, about eight or nine were not even worth saving.  They emerged top heavy with stout stems, but they tapered to nothing and flopped over immediately.  The seedlings that appeared robust enough, I quickly transplanted into taller pots and buried them as deep as I dared. 

Only after they germinated did I research the conditions these seedlings prefer - they do not like to be transplanted often - they develop long roots - so I should have started them in tall pots to begin with.  I don't know if these will survive or not, but I have a bounty of extra seeds still in the fridge should I want to try again.  Lesson learned - KNOW YOUR SEEDLING!

transplant fever

 Here it is, the beginning of February, and I'm already doing a second transplant for the yarrow seedlings.  

 I had noticed the last time I watered that there were roots emerging from the bottoms of the pots.  These  are 2" square pots, and I only transplanted into them 3 weeks ago, so I hope that speaks to how robust these little plants are so far.  They certainly had nice root systems - notice I didn't wait until they were pot-bound, with roots creating a thick mass.  I think this will make them more inclined to grow down into the new soil, or at least that's my hope.  

The seedlings also have their true leaves, the leaves that they develop as they mature.  They're definitely starting to look like little yarrow plants!

I had wanted to pot up to a taller 3 or 4 inch pot, which I could have purchased on Amazon.com; a pack of 30 was around $20.  But a trip to a local off-price store led me to find a package of 50 plastic red party cups for less than $3, which I drilled drainage holes into and should work just as well as the nursery pots for my  little operation.

I expect these plants to be on the taller side by the time I'm able to transplant them outside, and without a heated greenhouse to grow them in now, it's a little tricky.  If you're only using the power of the sun coming through a window, these types of seedlings might get leggy and weak, desperately looking for light.  This is where my growing setup is going to either sink or swim.  I've set it up so that the racks are still removable, even with the grow lights zip-tied to them.  This will allow me to raise the height of the lights to accommodate the taller seedlings without compromising their health...hopefully. 

You can see where I removed one tier with lights to give these seedlings more room to grow.  If I had put them on the second rack, they would have been almost touching the lights, which I don't want.  I should be able to see if the lights are too high by monitoring their reaction to the transplant and new light situation over the next week.  All of my grow lights are on timers that snap on at 5:00 am and shut off around 8:00 pm.  Ignore the cat who has decided she'll only drink the water from the celery stub I'm rooting in a glass cup...cats.  Sheesh.  Though you can't see the stalk in water, in front of that is one that I started in the fall and eventually planted into a pot.  It's doing very well and my mother has cut a few stalks for flavoring soups already.  It's not going gangbusters by any stretch, but it'll be more than ready when it comes time to plant these out in the garden this spring.

On my other rack are some successes and failures.

I've transplanted the verbena bonariensis to 2" pots and they're responding nicely.  

This is another plant that wants to get tall, much taller than the yarrow.  If they outgrow the one tier removed situation on the rack, I can always put them on the floor and remove 2 racks, to give them more room to stretch.  

Also on that rack are some Blue Fescue ornamental grass seeds I've started.  They've just begun to come to, and if they thrive it looks like I may have around 30 nice little clumps to plant out this year.

Under the domed lid are some allium seed that I collected from my plants last summer.  I left them outside to dry, then brought them in for a week to dry even more.  After I was sure they had no moisture (potential for mold), I put them in a paper envelope and stored them in the refrigerator for a few months.  When I wanted to plant them, about three weeks before that I put them on a damp paper towel and returned them to the fridge, monitoring the moisture and checking for mold.  After 3 weeks I put them in the domed container in seed starting mix, and have waited.  It's been two and a half weeks and nothing so far, so I'm not sure if they'll germinate.  I can give it another week to see what happens, or I may move them to the basement where it's a little cooler for a short time, then move them outside to winter sow, if they survive.  It may even be that the seeds aren't viable to begin with, who knows?

We finally had a nice snowfall without rain ruining it last week.  We ended up with about 6" of fresh snow, bringing the snowpack back up to about 14". 

It's been sunny and cold since, but the strength of the sun still manages to melt a little more each day.  The driveway is a frozen tundra in the morning, and a muddy mess by evening.  Already the snowpack has settled to about 9".  As the saying goes, it's just making room for more - winter in New England is never brief!  Some of our whopper snows have come in February, and you can't discount the lambing storms in March.  (Sheep will wait for the worst possible conditions to begin lambing, I swear.  There's a two day blizzard threatening to dump three feet of snow?  All right ladies, commence contractions!)

The sunny days have brought a large flock of wild turkeys to the pasture in the last week.  About a dozen or so hens were followed by about a half dozen toms.

My crow friends have increased by one.  It's interesting, because there were 3 last winter until nearer spring, when the fourth joined them.  I don't know if that's a new member or one of the babies from last year.  As I snapped this photo a surprise fifth crow soared by the window.  There's always one lookout in the trees, especially with the hawks around.

I know the little song birds appreciate the crows and jays setting off their alarms when he's nearby.

Next up - sowing annual flowers for pots, then prepping for vegetable sowing in March.