It’s been a quiet, homey sort of day today. Not much to write about.

I head-counted 31 while feeding the outside cats this morning.  Then, as I was returning from my morning rounds, I saw Broccoli and Sprout had arrived – they, at least, are very distinctive! – making 33 in total. 

I heard back from the Cat Lady about Wolfman.  She talked to the vet about his eye, but the vet would not comment either way without seeing Wolfman directly.  I was hoping to at least get a ballpark figure on what a removal might cost, if one is needed.  So she will let me know the next time she needs to be near our usual half way meeting point to pick up Wolfman and pass on some kibble donations.

As for Wolfman, if we were to go strictly by his behavior, you might miss that there is anything wrong at all.  Just a little while ago, I saw him dashing around me, and it does seem like he can still see through that eye.  Given what it looked like in the photos I managed to get, that’s surprising.  He may simply have gotten used to it.  She still sometimes squints with the one eye, but that’s about it. There is no appearance of discomfort, and he’s his usual playful self.  He’s even still play fighting with his adopted siblings, which may well be how the eye was injured in the first place!

In other things, I’ve decided to try sprouting the seeds I got soaking yesterday, before potting them.  They are now between layers of damp paper towel in a take out container.  With large seeds like this, I covered the semi-transparent lid to reduce light exposure, and I did also scarify their outer shells.  

While tending the seedlings, I noticed a strange thing with the large tray that has the eggplant and hot peppers.  Most of them are getting nice and big, but a few seem to be wilting, and are more stunted.  The stunted ones are all on one side of the tray.

I need to look up my old post about starting these.  This tray may be the one where I ran out of one brand of seed starting mix, and opened a bag from another brand.  Most of the cells in the tray would have a bit of both, but one end would have had only the second brand.

What I didn’t do was mark which side that was!

If this tray is the mixed brand one, then the San Marzano tomato tray is all the second brand. So far, they seem fine. In fact, I’ll be needing to add more mix to top up the cells around their stems soon. I’ll leave them in these cells a while longer, before I thin by transplanting.

Ah, I just went and looked up my old post. Yes, this is the tray with the two different brands of seed starter mix. Considering that I had the tray mostly full before I had to open the second bag, there would be fewer cells with the second mix, only, and the others would have had the first brand in the bottoms, and then just got topped up with the second brand before the seeds were sowed. Which means the smaller number of cells that have stunted seedlings in them would most likely be the ones with the Miracle Grow brand of seed starting mix. I believe the other brand was Jiffy, but I’m not sure.

Dangit. I should have taken better notes! Ah, well.

We have more seedlings that we need, so if some don’t do as well, that’s okay. At long as we have at least a few of each that survive transplanting, we’ll have enough for our needs.

It’s always a learning experience, isn’t it?

The Re-Farmer