Damping Off!

The plague of every start from seed gardener has finally hit me. I've started seeds for 3 years now and never had this problem before, but this year, I've lost most of my lavender, thyme, and alpine strawberries to this awful fungus condition! Brought about by top water, not enough air movement, and slightly too cold temperatures in the basement. Damping off (insert link) is not just my problem, but washing seed trays (or egg cartons in my case) in hot soapy water every spring will help stave it off, as will consistent bottom watering instead of top watering with a mister. Now I've learned my lesson. Anyone else have this problem this cold spring?

Frugal Recycled Seed Starting Trays

The first year I started seeds, I used those fun little jiffy pots. I found, however, that when I was digging up the garden that fall to plant cool weather crops, all of the netting was still around the rootball of my plants. Now, for annuals, this might not be a problem, but then again, I didn’t really want all those little pieces of netting floating around in the soil in my garden. So I started using trays. Well, actually, I started using egg carton tops with drainage holes punched into them. Don’t get me wrong, I love to use the cardboard egg cartons for buying eggs because they biodegrade in my compost pile. But I found that starting seeds in the Styrofoam egg cartons actually helps the soil retain moisture for longer, cuts down on fungus (because they can be washed in hot soapy water to help kill bacteria… hot soapy water tends to destroy the cardboard kind of cartons) and helps give me something to do with all those egg cartons!

So here's how to make your own cheap seed starting trays.

• Take a styrofoam egg carton and cut the top off using scissors.
  
• Wash the egg carton top (that is now separated from the bottom) in hot soapy water. Allow to dry.
  
• Take a knife and make holes in the bottom of your tray for drainage. I find that simply inserting the knife and rotating it 45 degrees to each side gives a nice size hole.
• Fill your tray with sterile potting soil or some other seed starting medium.
• Plant your seeds.
• Place your seed tray on a cookie sheet or some other tray that will hold water so that you can water from the bottom. This will help protect your seedlings from damping off and will also make your watering chores SO much easier.
  
• Congratulate yourself on reusing an egg carton and keeping your garden inexpensive!
  

Seed Starting Light Set-up

Add one wire shelf, 8 shop lights, 16 fluorescent tubes, a couple of multi-plug extension cords and an inexpensive timer and what do you get? A seed starting set up! I’ve seen shelves like this in garden catalogues and drooled over them, and then cringed at their price (some of them are nearly $300 plus shipping!!). Armed with an idea of what I wanted and a coupon to my favorite home improvement store, I bought the supplies for half the price of the garden catalog variety, and I avoided shipping. I highly recommend having a friend help you set this up, however, as it is no fun to break a light bulb, but lots of fun to work together.
What kinds of bulbs should you use? I thought that a full spectrum bulb would work best, but they're expensive. So I did a little search and found out from the University of Minnesota that plain old shop lights work just as well. I then double checked that information against the wise sages of the Gardener's Forum and found that most folks there say the same thing: don't waste your money on expensive lights for seedlings (now, if you're trying to grow plants throughout the season, that might be a little different). Also, if you notice your seedlings are growing away from one of your bulbs, replace it if you can. You want your little darlings to grow as straight and evenly as possibly. I laugh to my cowboy that he will never have a shortage of lights for his workbench as he’s got all the seed starting leftover bulbs to use.

Tomatoes, Onions, and Marigolds, oh my!

And they’re up! The seeds that we planted at our hen gardening party are finally putting up their little cotyledon leaves (first leaves from a seed). The onions are easy to spot, but the marigolds and tomatoes look exactly the same at this stage (it’s a good thing we marked them well!) This is the point at which we can take off the clear plastic tops of the seedling trays and lower the lights to just above the level of the seedlings (about 3” above the top of the seedlings). This will give them some air flow and will also give them the most light possible from my little shop light set up. The aluminum foil behind the shelves also helps increase the ambient light level for these future garden stars. At this point, I’ll also start petting my plants daily when I check them for moisture. No, I’m not some crazed gardener, petting the seedlings will help them develop strong stalks so that when they make it out into the garden they can withstand the wind and rain. Petting, believe it or not, will help to prevent leggy seedlings. This is also the point at which I’ll start watering with some dilute fish emulsion fertilizer. I like fish emulsion because I can buy it in concentrate and mix my own. I don’t like it because it smells, well, fishy. But it’s organic and gentle enough for my tender little seedlings. Perhaps next year I’ll be ambitious enough to make some compost tea.

Now I’m just waiting for the peppers and the eggplants to come up. I’m not worried because these typically take 2-4 weeks to germinate. Grow little seeds, grow!

I've been Forked!

Actually, I've forked myself. Instead of buying those expensive little plant markers, I'm using leftover plastic forks (you know, the ones that just seem to accumulate in junk drawers, inside the pantry, and in the car behind the seat.) I know that it is more sustainable to use the little wooden plant markers for seasonal marking because they decompose when I'm done with them, but I'm on a budget and all of these forks would be making their way to a landfill by now anyway if I hadn't washed and reused them (washed them in the dishwasher with a load I was doing anyway, at least I'm conserving water, right?)

The forks are marking seed areas. I garden using a modified square foot gardening method (modified because it starts out all nice and square footish at the beginning of the season when I'm planting seeds and then digresses slowly to a marginally controlled chaos as the summer season comes on and I find the urge to fit in "one more plant" simply irresistible). As the season progresses and these squares get filled up, I'll post a garden plan (this year seems to be the year of "oh just put it over there").

For now, these are the seeds planted today:
Libson White Bunching Onions
Carrots (thanks, JM!)
Chard - Ruby and White
Peas- Snap
Peas- Snow
Spinach
Mesclun Mix (I'll succession plant this every 2 weeks till early June)
Kohlrabi (the alien plant)
Beets

I can't wait for salads!! What did you plant today?

Hen Gardening Party

Oh! Am I kicking myself for not taking any photos at our little hen gardening party! (There weren’t actually any hens there, city ordinances against livestock and all, but that’s what I called it to gently let the fellas know that it was a ladies party.) I made a pot of tea, we covered the kitchen table in newspaper, rolled up our sleeves, swapped seeds, started seeds, and generally had a lovely time of it! Lovely LP has never really gardened before, as she laughingly told us “I want to be a gardener, I really do.” So JM and I were giving a few tips, and we loaded her up with peas and lettuces and spinach and chard to plant in the next few days and beans and squash and cucumber seeds to plant Mother’s Day weekend. Her clever daughter took some snapdragon and convolvulus seeds to put in a pot together (I thought she had a rather ingenious idea to put the snaps in the center of a pot to grow tall and then to have the convolvulus trailing around the edge. I love the creativity of children.)
And then when I thought we had totally overloaded her with gardening information and the hopes and dreams and wishes of fresh vegetables from her own garden, we started seeds in flats. And I’m not just talking one or two, we started enough seeds for at least 6 gardens!

Tomatoes:

• Brandywine
• Mexico
• Cherokee Purple (my personal favorite)
• Mr. Stripey
• Eva Purple Ball
• Early Annie
• Roma VF

Cherry Tomatoes:

• Yellow Pear
• Blondkopfchen
• Ghost Cherry
• Camp Joy
• Gardener’s Delight
• Hawaiian Currant
• Black Cherry

Peppers:

• Jalepeno M
• Garden Salsa
• Sweet Bell Pepper Mix (I have no idea what will come up!)
• Sweet Banana Pepper Mix (again, surprises!)

Eggplants:

• Black Beauty
• Lavender Touch Hybrid

Other:

• Libson Bunching Onions
• Impatiens
• Marigolds
• Parsley

(I'm a little nervous about whether there's enough room for them all once they're transplanted.... we'll see how that goes in about a month)

After everyone left, I transplanted the Lavender Lady that was ready (23 of these little guys)

And that’s on top of the little starts that are already sprouting!

Thyme seedlings are super easy to grow - these are about 2 weeks old.

The super high-tech seedling markers are pieces of paper encased in packing tape.

JM scolded me a little that I haven’t been blogging the garden as it grows till now, and that it’s not just my garden that I’m growing, so I should be sharing what’s happening to all of these little seeds. Perhaps this is the start of something wonderful, helping other folks learn to grow their own food and flowers. I like the idea of that, growing my and other folks gardens. It’s like gardening foster care, when the little plants are ready, they’ll move on to their permanent homes.

So here’s the blog, lovely JM!

And here’s to another day in the Maple Tree Garden.