Today ended up being a home day. Yesterday wiped both me and my daughter out completely, so we’ve been in recovery mode. Tomorrow, I will need to go out to do the last of our Easter shopping and errand running, since so many places will be closed.
When I checked on my seed starts last night, I had a lovely surprise. The first Florence Fennel seeds had emerged! I could see at least a couple of Blueberry tomato seedlings, too.
They are hard to see, but in the first photo, there are both Blueberry and Chocolate Stripe seedlings emerged.
The second photo shows an explosion of Orange Currant and Manitoba tomato seedlings.
The third photo, you can see more of the hollyhocks, including a couple lifting up their seed casings. I’ll keep an eye on those and see if the seed leaves need help getting out. The other roll has quite a few Florence Fennel seedlings showing, and I expect I might even see more by the time I check on them again this evening.
I added more water to the trays and realized it was time to “graduate” out of the plastic tray for the mixed stuff, onto a stronger metal tray. Moving the herb seedlings was the most delicate. These were sown into 5 cell trays, but the tarragon had only three cells with seedlings, so I removed two of them. The compostable material was breaking apart, anyhow. The summer savoury looks so long and spindly. I’ll probably end up buying transplants for those, but we’ll see how they do for now. Then there’s the sad little luffa!
The Golden Boy yellow celery, however, is going fantastic! It’s getting too tall to fit under the shop light. The marigold and Cosmos are doing very well up there.
After transferring everything to the metal tray, I could remove the plastic one, then poured the water I’d added earlier into the metal tray. The shelf sags slightly in the middle, unfortunately. I’ve added some sheets of cardboard under the heat mats in the middle, but it isn’t quite enough to make up for the sag. Ah, well. I just have to be careful to make sure that roll with the celery doesn’t dry out too much.
Normally, I would take these off the heat mat completely, but the basement is too cold, which means the soil is even colder. The metal tray will diffuse the heat better than the plastic, and the water on the bottom will also help equalize things – in theory, anyhow! Before, I had tried using a heater and staying in the basement while it was running, but between the heat mats and the shop light I’m running out of places to plug things in. The basement has three outlets in the entire space, and only two of them can be reached from the table. With the third one, though, I’ll be able to plug in a fan to get some air moving to help strengthen the stems. It doesn’t need to be very close to do the job.
So that is our seedling progress today, and I’m very happy to be seeing so many tomatoes. Especially with the ones where I’d used up the entire packet of seeds and have no spares! I was starting to wonder about the Florence Fennel, too.
Pretty happy with how things are going, considering the rather poor set up we’ve got this year.
First up, some good news in progress that made it worth being up way too late again.
At around midnight, I was contacted by someone from the new rescue. Some spaces are opening up, and she was wondering what friendly yard cats might be available to take in for fostering and adoption?
She had a few in mind from pictures I’d sent before, but requested more up to date photos and videos that she could show to potential fosters. My daughter and I did that while doing the morning cat feeding. Unfortunately, a couple of times when I thought I was taking video, it turned out it wasn’t recording. Instead, I had a second or two of video of our feet or whatever, taken at either end of what was supposed to be a video for the rescue! We have a whole bunch of adult males in particular that are so friendly, it’s almost impossible to get still shots of them, as they are all over each other, trying to get pets.
So I will have to try again later today. If all goes well, we might be able to have our tiny girls that are friendly, but still too small to spay (even though they are almost a year old) be taken in. Or Sir Robin. Sir Robin desperately wants to be an indoor cat! I haven’t even seen some of the adult feral females in a few days which, unfortunately, means they may well have just had kittens somewhere in their hidden places.
Tis the season.
Speaking of the season, here is how our seedlings are looking.
Two snail rolls have graduated to the upper level and are now under the shop light, giving them a few more inches of space that I couldn’t give them with the gooseneck light fixture they were under.
The Golden Boy celery is thriving since being “potted up” to the snail roll! That poor little luffa is getting its true leaves, but is looking pretty sickly. The summer savoury is looking very leggy and weak, but the tarragon – the very few there are – are looking stronger.
The second picture is of the eggplant and peppers tray. Those seedlings are looking very sad and weak, and there are so few surviving. I’ve already resown them, but I won’t try again. They are short season enough that I might try direct sowing, instead.
With how few there are, I’m seriously considering “potting them up” into a snail roll. I could easily fit them all into a single roll, with room to spare. I’m just not sure how well they’d handle being transplanted. It can’t be much worse than they are doing now.
In the first picture, you can see quite a few more of the hollyhocks now. There are still two or three seedlings disguised as vermiculite in there.
In the next picture, you can see a second Orange Currant tomato is up – plus there’s another elbowing its way up that I didn’t even see until I looked at the photo, later.
It’s the same in the next picture. I could see one Manitoba tomato had emerged, but looking closely in the photo, I can see the stem of another, pushing it’s way up.
Still no sign of anything in the Chocolate Stripes or Blueberry tomatoes, and still no Florence Fennel visible.
All in good time.
Tomorrow is the last business day of the month – payday – so we are expecting to do our Costco stock up trip in the city. I’ll see what they have for seed starting mix. I only got one bag and it’s pretty small. I might only get four seed snails out of it. I won’t be starting more seeds for a couple more weeks, but I will probably be starting more. Costco carries the big Pro Mix bags, which would last me for the rest of the seed starting season. I might have to sift it before using it. I haven’t heard people talking about needing to do that with their seed starting mixed this year at all, though, so it might not be an issue. I might need to get more potting soil, too. I still have some but, with so much material getting sifted out, I don’t have as much potting soil as it appears in the bag! Any time I pot something up, I would be using potting soil rather than seed starting mix.
We really need a better set up for starting seeds indoors.
My husband has to be really careful before sitting on or getting into his hospital bed. Big Rig all but lives in it, burrowing under his covers, with just the tiniest bit visible. In this case, just her nose was visible, until I got right down to mattress level!
She’s such a giant slug of a cat!
Anyhow…
Today, while checking on the seed starts in the basement, I found another first.
You can just barely see in the first image above, our very first tomato seedling. This one is an Orange Currant tomato. Hopefully, that means we’ll be seeing more tomato seedlings coming up over the next few days.
The next photo in the slide show above has the Crackerjack marigolds (left) and Cosmos (right). These are starting to get tall enough that I will soon move them up to the shelf under the shop light. The tray the single luffa, herbs and the celery that was transplanted into a snail roll has room for at least two, potentially four, snail rolls, depending on how thick they are. I might end up taking everything out of that plastic tray and setting them on another metal baking sheet, like what these snail rolls are on. Less space on the tray, but it can hold the weight of those seed snail rolls.
In the last photo, you can see the hollyhock seedlings. It looks like only three, but there are four more seedlings hidden in the roll. The seed leaves are still encased in the seeds’ outer shell, so they look a lot like the vermiculite. There are two near the centre seedling with the green of their stems just barely visible. There are two more in the outer part of the roll, center and left of centre. Honest!
I didn’t take any pictures, but the pepper and eggplant seedings are not looking particularly good. One of the eggplant seedings simply died off. It was right in a corner cell, on the far side of the tray, and I suspect it was just not warm enough for it there, even with the heat mat under the tray. With so few survivors, that’s a lot of wasted space in the tray, too.
In hind sight, I’m now thinking it would have been better to do those in seed rolls, too! Chances are, they wouldn’t have been eaten by mice or whatever it was that killed most of them, either.
Ah, well. Live and learn!
I’m just happy to see my first little tomato seedling. This variety might even be a type of tomato I can eat raw, like the Spoon tomatoes. We shall see!
My goodness! When seedlings start to germinate, some of them do it incredibly quickly!
Last night, checking on the seed starts before going to bed, I spotted a single marigold seedling that had emerged. I could also see a hollyhock elbowing its way up.
On the bottom right are the Cosmos that had already germinated. There are 11 seedlings – I think I planted only 12 seeds in there.
On the bottom left are the marigolds. I counted 7 seedlings, 6 of which there had been no sign of at all, last night.
Above the marigolds is the hollyhock roll. At first, I could see just the one seedling lifting its head (these are the seeds that the instructions said not to cover at all). When I looked closer, though, I could see three more little green elbows.
Still no tomatoes or fennel, but I’m not expecting to see any of those quite yet. Heck, I wasn’t expecting to see the flowers emerge this quickly!
Hopefully, this is a good sign for the garden this year. From the amount of snow we have on the ground right now, we should at least get a good start before the heat hits and everything dries up. I believe we are supposed to have drought conditions again this year. Which is actually the “normal” for the prairies.
Meanwhile, I watched this video from Self Sufficient Me this morning. I really find videos like this the most inspiring – the ones where things have gone all “wrong”!
Granted, an overgrown jungle like that would never happen here. We’re more likely to have everything baked and dry. Still, it comes down to the same thing: having a bad year is not being a “failure” or a “bad gardener”. It’s just a bad year. Things will never be perfect.
If we waited for perfect conditions and the “right” circumstances, we’d never accomplish anything – in the garden, or in life!
At least three lovely surprises, though two are pretty hard to see in the photo. Looking at the photo more closely, though, I wonder if there’s actually five sprouts.
These are the Dwarf Dazzler Cosmos. It hasn’t even been four full days yet, and there they are!
It should be interesting to see when the rest start showing up.
Aside from that, today has been another quiet day of domesticity. It’s been snowing on and off – just lightly, where we are – and that is expected to continue until about 2am. Tomorrow, I’m planning to “test” the truck again. I want to go into town and refill a couple of our big water jugs, and maybe pick up a few other things at the grocery store.
The grocery store that is across the street from the garage.
Yes, the truck ran perfectly well after we picked it up, but I still don’t trust Damocles, with how it would switch from working fine to breaking down for so long.
I plan to leave early enough that, if things go well, I’ll try visiting my mother afterwards, too.
Speaking of my mother…
I got a call from my brother yesterday evening. My mother had called him while he was at work.
We now know why our vandal told my brother he wanted to talk to my mother alone when they ran into each other at the TCU on the weekend.
He wants her to pay for his funeral.
He has no money, he says, so she should pay for it.
???
Not that long ago, he told her he had his own funeral all arranged, including the service at the church in town we all went to as children. He even told her that, for the gathering afterwards (the tradition out here is to rent a hall for a catered luncheon after the internment, sometimes with video displays and music), he said he wanted a bottle of vodka on every table.
Now, he wants Mom to pay for all that?
The thing is, Mom told my brother that she said yes, just to shut him up and get rid of him. We all know what his reaction would have been like, if she hadn’t. With his wife there, he wouldn’t have gotten too out of control, but it would not have been good.
Yeah. His wife was there.
Mom told my brother, nothing was signed or anything. She says he’s got plenty of money (he got a very generous buy out and was able to retire in his mid 50’s), his wife works, they’ve got land – he can pay for his own funeral. Seriously; I have to drive by his place regularly. I see the equipment and vehicles he’s got all over. He could easily sell just half of it and do quite well for himself for many years.
My mother had commented to my brother about how sick our vandal was looking. Which is interesting, because when my brother saw him just an hour earlier, he was looking pretty hale and hardy for a man that’s supposedly about to die. He’s still broad shouldered and agile, not wasting away. Which is what I see, too, when I see him going by on the trail cams. Or when he stopped at the end of the driveway in the fall and yelled at me from the road while waving his colostomy bag around, getting in and out of his vehicle, and looking quite energetic. He’s clearly putting on an act for my mother.
That his wife is part of this is an extra element of disturbing.
I’m just so disgusted with them. He still feels like he’s entitled to whatever he wants from my mother, because he “helped” here at the farm for so many years, and “helped” my late father after my mother moved out (though we now know he was verbally abusive and manipulative, on top of helping himself to whatever he wanted). Our vandal was one of the reasons my mother moved out. Yeah, he did do nice things for both of them, though he also caused plenty of problems, too, but when my late brother died, it clearly destroyed his mind. His terminal cancer diagnosis (if he actually has one; who knows, at this point) has only made him worse.
To go after my mother like that, though? With his wife!!! Disgusting.
What he doesn’t know, though, is that even if he convinced my mother to sign something, it wouldn’t matter. The doctors have already agreed that my mother’s cognitive function has dropped low enough that if she signs anything like that, it can’t be legally binding. Only my brother can sign on her behalf now. Verbal agreement doesn’t hold much either, since she’s flat out said she only agreed to shut him up; she was coerced.
I will be honest; my mother is not a nice person. These two really are very much alike in their behaviour, and it is a mutually abusive relationship. Knowing that there is an undiagnosed mental illness behind all this doesn’t make it any better. There was a time, long ago, when the person my mother could have been would emerge briefly, and she was so amazing. She is a survivor and amazingly strong. She somehow managed to keep it together for so many years and raised us as best she knew how. She deserves better than this. Especially from someone that was once so close to all of us.
Bah.
The main thing is, she made a point of letting my brother know what happens, so my siblings and I now all know why she said yes to our vandal at the time, and that she has no intention of paying for his funeral. He must still think she has millions of dollars squirreled away somewhere – and that he is entitled to it! Just like he felt entitled to this property.
What a mess.
I’m looking forward to being able to engage in more garden therapy, because I could really use it of late!
I did a lot of prep in advance. I had enough bubble warp to make the eight snail rolls that I needed, so I went with that, this time. The bubble wrap has perforations to make 12″ square sheets. I made strips 3 sheets long, then cut them in half, giving me strips that were 3′ long and 6″ wide, using clear packing tape for where I needed to join pieces together. I saved the masking tape for holding the rolls together, labelling half the strips I needed in advance.
Then I used hot water to moisten the seed starting mix. I had a bit left over from last time, plus added the new bag I got. No sifting needed! It took almost a gallon of water to get it sufficiently damp! I also set up a heat mat and a plastic tray under the shelf the seedlings are on, to hold the rolls.
Once everything was set up, it was time to make the seed snails and plant some seeds.
I had a bit of a surprise with the tomato seeds. Specifically the seed counts. I always empty the packet of what I’m working on into a bowl to make it easier to grab the seeds, one at a time – usually with the tip of a damp bamboo chopstick for small seeds. The Orange Currant packet said 25 seeds, but there were only 18. I normally would have planted about a dozen seeds and saved the rest; I chose varieties with growing seasons short enough that I could try again if germination or survival rates were low. I ended up using the entire packet.
The Blue Berries tomato had a seed count of 10, but there was only 9. I even double checked the packet to make sure nothing was stuck inside. Not a bit deal.
The other two varieties, meanwhile, had more than what the packet’s seed count said. I planted a dozen seeds each of those and have some left over if I need to try again.
I’m not complaining about the seed count. MI Gardener even did a video on Instagram, I think, talking about why they do see counts instead of weights, and that they always try to have over counts, but mistakes sometimes happen. Their seed packets are only $2 each, so I’m really not worried about it.
The strips I made for the seed rolls were all quite a bit longer than needed. This is deliberate. It gives me enough slack that I can “pot up” the tomatoes more than once, as the seedlings get bigger.
With the Florence Fennel, I made that roll bigger because I wanted to plant quite a bit more. Those can also be succession sown. We don’t normally buy bulb fennel, even though we enjoy it, because it’s one of those “treat” vegetables, rather than a staple. Hopefully, we will have lots to enjoy. I’ve tried growing them once before in the old kitchen garden and they were mostly a fail (the leaves could be used, but we never got bulbs). We didn’t realize, at the time, just how much the ornamental crab apple trees shaded everything. That’s been largely dealt with but, this year, I’ll be sure to set them where they will get more light!
With the flowers, I plan to direct sow some of the left over seeds later on, to extend the blooming season. They are going to be scattered all over the garden areas, rather than into dedicated flower beds.
I’m a little perplexed, though. I had wanted to start some of the aster seeds I saved from a packet of memorial seeds. I distinctly remember labelling a paper seed envelop (from some of the free ones we got with our seed orders) for them, as well as one for the asparagus seeds I’d collected. Now, I can’t find either. The other seeds I’d collected were larger so they went into little spice jars. I have those. They all should have been together in my seed storage bin, and I just can’t find them anymore!
I really want to plant those memorial asters again.
But I digress…
Once I got all the seed rolls done – which used up all the seed starting mix I had! – I topped them with a bit of vermiculite. Even the hollyhock, which the packet said not to cover. I just dusted a bit for the benefit of the seed starting mix surface; not enough to actually cover the seeds. After that, they all got a thorough misting.
The first was the tray they were in. All those rolls were heavy enough I had to be very careful not to break the tray when moving it.
Then there was the problem of light.
Once they were under the shelf and on the heat mat, I tried to set up one of the full spectrum lights I have. Unfortunately, the only place I can clamp the fixture onto is the edge of the table, and the lights didn’t quite reach under the shelf. I had to pull everything out and set things up closer to the edge, which I had hoped to avoid doing. It leaves me very little work space on my table.
I was just finishing up when my daughter came down to see how I was doing (she’s been taking over the outside cat feeding of late, letting me sleep in in the mornings, and get jobs like this done). I took advantage of her and got her to help me transfer the seed rolls out of the plastic tray and onto one of the metal baking sheets I had been using to hold seedlings in the Red Solo Cups. They are too wide to go under shelf were I’d originally intended the tray to be, which is why I hadn’t used one in the first place. In the second picture, you can see how it’s now set up, on a strong and sturdy metal tray over the heat mat and with the lights.
I had not intended to do so many seed snails but, for this year, they are the most practical way to do it, and they really do save a lot of space.
The next group of seeds that will need to be started are in the 4-6 weeks before last frost category. I’ll do those around the middle of April or a bit later. More than enough time to get more seed starting mix.
Hopefully, we’ll have a good germination rate – and the mouse or whatever that ate my pepper seedlings won’t like anything growing here!
Today being the first day of spring, I just had to do a garden tour video.
😂🤣😂🤣
Well… it was warm, sunny and things were melting all over, at least. The snow is getting super soft, which made it actually harder to walk through, even where paths were shovels, as it would sometimes give way under my feet and I’d sink when I wasn’t expecting to.
With conditions like that, it made for a pretty short video. I hope you enjoy the tour!
I borrowed my brother’s truck for a trip to the post office and general store.
But first, I had to do some digging. *sigh*
We have a prescription delivery today, so I went ahead to open the gate, to be left open until after the delivery. Walking down the driveway, I was seeing a very odd shadow. It turned out to be a steeply angled drift that stretched from under one side of the gate, diagonally across the driveway for about 30 feet.
Also, the plow went by. There wasn’t much of a plow ridge, but enough that it was making the end of the driveway too narrow.
Messed up arm or not, it needed to be cleared before I could go anywhere, and before the delivery arrived.
Thankfully, the snow wasn’t too hard packed and I could mostly to it by just pushing the shovel with one hand, but it did take a lot longer for it.
My right arm is so messed up right now.
That done, I got my brother’s truck unplugged (he’s got both a block heater and a trickle charger, so I’m leaving it plugged in even though it’s warmer) and started.
First of all, I have to say, it is a good, solid truck. It has done amazing for my brother, made many trips hauling trailers and RVs, and we got an amazing amount of my mother’s furniture into it when we emptied her apartment – though the battery did die, because of the extreme cold we’d just gone through. Thankfully, my brother has a portable charger/booster for times like that.
I hope never to have to drive that truck again! 😄😄
It’s the largest vehicle I’ve ever driven and handles completely different than any other vehicle I’ve ever driven. Everything about it feels and sounds “wrong”! Even the sound of gravel getting kicked up against the undercarriage sounded wildly different. It’s an older vehicle – I don’t know the year, but I think it’s late 70’s. Maybe early 80’s. Which means the entire frame makes noises that newer vehicles just don’t, anymore. Creaks and groans, rattles, pops and snaps. Of course, it also handled very differently, too.
Still, it got me to where I was going, and I am thankful for it. I’m sure, over time, I would get used to it and it would be fine.
I don’t want to have to get used to it. 😂
I did remember to bring a couple of our hard sided grocery bags when I got to the general store. I had a bit of a shock when I pulled in. Their gas price was $1.169! The average gas price in our province right now is $1.614
I just looked it up and Costco gas prices today are $1.099 right now, while the average price for the city is $1.629
Both gas tanks on my brother’s truck were full, though.
Anyhow.
I went in and got the mail, including the two parcels I was expecting. Then I did a bit of shopping. Just a few items for us, but mostly I was looking at their kibble. We’re running low on kibble for the outside cats.
They only had small 1.5kg (about 5 pounds) bags of cat kibble, and the cheaper brand was just under $10 a bag. Lots of big bags of dog kibble, but none for cats. The store does carry feed, so I asked if their supplier carried the 40 pound bags of cat kibble. She looked it up and they do, but it’s a brand I was unfamiliar with. Still, if it’s something we could get here instead of driving to feed stores in towns to the north and south of us, that would be helpful. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I should request a bag and see if the cats will actually eat it.
I got only three of the little bags for now. The kibble bin for the inside cats was mostly full, so that went to the outside cats, and the small bags for the inside cats. We have lots of canned cat food, thanks to the very generous donation, so we can use more of that for a while.
Before heading home, I messaged and asked if someone could meet me at the garage to help me bring things in. I couldn’t carry anything with my right arm. Even with taking my bags to the truck, I couldn’t open the doors my right arm. I had to put the bag down, use my left arm, hold the door with my foot and grab the bag again. I had to make three trips to bring them to the truck, when I normally would have been able to carry all three bags at once!
When I got home, my younger daughter was waiting for me in the garage – and she was hobbling with a cane! I was glad she was there, though, as she could guide me into the garage. My brother had set a large board across as a stop so the truck wouldn’t go too far in and have the cap hit the top of the door frame, but with her there, she could let me know when to stop before I hit the board.
Then my poor daughter struggled to grab two bags with one arm, to take into the house for me! I offered to find a way to do it, but she managed. I stayed long enough to make sure the truck was plugged in and locked up (my brother is worried about our vandal) before following her.
Once settled in, I texted the garage. I let them know that the third brake light I’d ordered was in, to replace the one I stupidly broke by forgetting the garage door was not fully open before I backed out. It’s an easy fix, but requires climbing into the box, and that’s something that is increasingly difficult and dangerous for me to do. I then asked, if the truck won’t be ready by the weekend, was it possible to get a courtesy vehicle? It’s one thing to drive my brother’s truck to the post office. It’s quite another to drive it to, say, Walmart, in one of the cities, or even just to one of the other towns to go to the feed stores. The part not being in yet is not something they can control, but it has already been a ridiculously long time to be without a vehicle as we wait!
I don’t know how often they check their texts in between jobs. I figure I’ll hear from them just before they close, again.
Then I had my other parcel to open, and this one is for the garden.
One thing that I ordered was 6mm thick greenhouse plastic at 10′ x 26′ (about 3m x 8m) That is long enough to cover an entire 4′ x 18′ bed in the main garden area, with a fairly decent height. I’ve been using painters drop cloth plastic, and it’s just too thin and tears too easily. I haven’t been able to find anything thicker, anywhere, other than vinyl table protectors, which are all too small. Unless I go for clear tarps, which I might still do for other things, but those can be very expensive. I not going to open that package until spring.
Then there is the hoop kit. I’ve been making do with things like Pex pipe, which works well enough, but for the price of the pipe, I wasn’t saving anything compared to this kit. The “60 piece set” includes 50 connectors, 27 garden clips, wire, gloves and 60 fiberglass 17″ hoop rods. The second picture in the slide show above shows the instruction side of the card.
The gloves are the one thing I would consider as probably useless in the kit. They wouldn’t fit my simian hands. They might fit my younger daughter, though. Maybe.
If this works out, I might go ahead and order more of these kits in the future.
Over time, as we slowly frame all the garden beds with logs, we plan to build more 3′ x 9′ covers. The beds are 4′ wide on the outside, so with the thickness of the logs, the actual growing area is closer to 3′ wide. We have three 3′ x 9′ garden beds made with scrap lumber I found in one of the sheds, and that’s the dimensions I was able to make with them, so it’s become sort of the default when it comes to making covers that are interchangeable. In the main garden area’s 18′ beds, we’d be able to fit two covers over one bed. The plan is to be able to use greenhouse plastic or netting interchangeably over the covers, as needed. Until then, we’ll use a hoop system, like this.
It’s currently covered with a huge tarp, black on one side, grey on the other, that was generously sent to us. It’s a heavy duty tarp, but you can actually see in the photo that there are lots of tiny little holes in it already! I can see light through them, on the inside.
*sigh*
I just came back from getting the prescription delivery, and there was another cat sitting in that same spot. I’ve seen others perched on the peak, as well.
So anything we try to use to cover the frame, so we can still use it, has to be cat proof.
I’ve been sent links as inspiration to use repurposed clear plastic bottles to make a greenhouse. Aside from the 1 gallon size distilled water jugs we get for my husband’s CPAP humidifier that I use in the garden, we don’t use a lot of clear plastic bottles. We haven’t even bought cases of bottled water from Costco in ages. However, it’s something we could make a point of collecting. Theoretically, we could do something like that to create walls that the cats can’t climb. If we were to instead cover it with, say, a clear tarp or 6mm plastic, we would have to put something under it to prevent any sort of sagging, like chicken wire (we have a roll with enough left on it to do that).
Something to figure out. Honestly, though, the bigger priority this year is to create something like a polytunnel in the main garden area this summer, as we would need to use it to overwinter the chickens we are getting this spring. That coop I got is fine for three seasons, but not enough to handle our prairie winters! Still, it would be nice to be able to use that portable greenhouse for our seed starts again. We only got one spring out of it before the cover was destroyed!
Meanwhile, I’m glad I was able to pick up the hoop kit and 6mm plastic. We’ll test it out once things melt enough. The prices were good enough that, if they work, it would be worthwhile to get more. It’ll be much easier to protect the beds from cats with netting, and these rods should even fit in the channels of the dollar store netting kits we got last year. Those were good, except the wire supports couldn’t handle the weight of kittens jumping on the netting.
Lots of work to do. I am looking forward to the warmer weather to get started on it!
Now, if my body would only cooperate and stop breaking down on me.
The yellow celery (Golden Boy celery) had outgrown their tray. They needed potting up.
The question was, how to do that without damaging their roots?
That’s the down side of scatter sowing such tiny seeds. Especially when the germination rate was so high!
I decided the best way to do it was to set them into a seed snail roll.
As with the onions, I wanted to use potting soil rather than a soilless seed starting mix. That meant, more sifting. Which had its own challenge. Wearing a dust mask again was out of the question. I just can’t wear a mask anymore, and trying to last time was really awful. Yet not having some sort of protection was also out of the question because of how much dust sifting the dry potting soil would raise up.
My solution turned out to be pretty simple. The clear plastic garbage bag I use to protect my work surface is large enough to cover the entire bucket, and have enough slack that I could grip the handles of the colander I am using as a sifter and shake it. Yes, small amounts of dust did come out from below, but this was at floor level and it wasn’t an issue.
Before I started, I emptied the old, cracked tray I was using to collect the big pieces. This is what I got.
The depth of the soil barely reached my second knuckles. Meanwhile, just look at all those pieces that got sifted out! Totally insane. This bag was purchased last year, and I’ve heard that a lot of people were having the same issue. A few sticks is pretty normal, but nothing to this extent. It wasn’t even just one brand, either. Hopefully, the companies have gotten better at making sure their raw material is properly composted before bagging it up and sending it out!
The first picture is the “before” shot. You can see how dense they are. The tray is bottom watered, and roots are showing out the opening. Roots that would be quite entangled. How to get the seedlings out and apart, then transplanted, gently?
In the second picture, you can see what I decided to do. I had a tray (a thoroughly cleaned and repurposed meat tray that we’ve had for a few years now) that was wider and flat. I carefully moved the whole clump over into the tray, then very gently started to loosen the seed starting mix to untangle and free up the roots a bit.
Then I got some hot water and thoroughly moistened the sifted soil. The seed starting mix the seedlings was in was really quite cold. Not good! I wanted to transplant them into soil that was at least a bit on the warm side.
I had prepared a strip of packing material – this time, using a clear repair tape I happen to have, instead of painters tape, to join three sections to make one long strip. I started out by laying a thin layer of soil over about 3/4 of the strip, as I wasn’t sure just how much of it I would need to use. Then it was time to VERY carefully and gently pull apart and set out the seedlings.
I was able to get all of them in, and did add more soil to the roll to fit them all.
The remaining seed starting mix got added to the bucket of sifted soil. I added more hot water and mixed it all up before adding another layer of soil to the roll; just enough to cover the roots.
Before rolling it, I added strips of masking tape to the end, so it just needed to be lifted into place, with the tape already handy to close up the roll.
With the two layers of soil in there, the result was a pretty thick roll. I could use the plastic underneath to hold the soil in at the bottom, but there wasn’t much that could be done at the top, and soil was falling out. Once it was taped closed and the roll set upright, I found a few seedlings had fallen out with the soil. I found some gaps and carefully set them back in. I then used some of the soil that fell out to fill in the top of the roll and support some of the seedlings that seemed to need it more.
Now, it’s back in the tray under the shop light. Both trays were empty of water, so I added warm water to the trays to maintain bottom watering.
While I was doing all this, I had the heater going. It’s aimed under the shelf I have the trays on. The thermometer is kept at the far end, and the temperature was only about 13C/55F. Holding my hand under the shelf, though, I could feel it was a lot warmer just under the trays. So I set up the thermometer next to the tray with the snail roll, which is at the far end from where the heater is.
The first picture shows the “potted up” celery back in their tray. After setting up and leaving the thermometer for a while, I got a reading, which you can see in the next photo above.
It’s just barely touching 25C/77F! This is great, as cold is the big issue here. The ambient temperature really should be about 20-24C/68-75F
Since the heat is under the trays, that will warm up any water that is in them which, in turn, will warm up the soil and seed starter mixes. Not by a lot, but enough to hopefully keep the chill off the roots. Plus, it will be better for the fresh pepper and eggplant seeds I sowed to hopefully replace the ones eaten by a mouse or whatever it was.
The hygrometer reading is low, though. Ideally, it should be between 50% and 60% – even 70% for some plants. Hopefully, the bottom watering and occasional misting helps counter the ambient humidity at least a bit.
The celery seedlings now have a nice deep roll to spread their roots into, so they should be good in there for a while.
Hopefully, they will survive this! I seem to remember that I used the entire packet of seeds for this, so there’s no trying again if they don’t make it.
My first goal was to “pot up” the onions in their seed snails. For this, I wanted to use potting soil, rather than more seed starting mix. I have a bag of potting soil from last year with plenty still left in it, but I knew it was really full of sticks. Which meant I needed to sift it, first, because there was no way it could be used in the snail rolls as it was.
I got out a bucket and a colander that I use for harvesting in the summer, and started sifting in batches. The potting soil was bone dry which made it easier to sift, but also meant there was a LOT of dust. Even misting with water didn’t really help much. I did try to use a dust mask, which is difficult all on its own, since I can’t wear masks anymore. It was either breathing dirt without it, or struggling to breathe with it. Definitely a no-win situation. It didn’t actually help much, to be honest, but it was better than nothing.
I was blown away by just how many sticks I sifted out.
That pile on the side? That’s what I sifted out of what you see in the bucket. I poked my finger in to measure, and it was up to my second joint, so about 2 inches deep. Good grief! It was almost more sticks than soil!
The next step was to moisten the sifted potting soil. I used hot water for that, so it wouldn’t be a shock to the plant roots. It took a remarkable amount of water to moisten it, and I was just aiming to get it wet enough to be able to stick to itself.
This is how they looked to start with. These rolls all fit into one bin, and the seedlings are looking pretty good.
The length of them did make unrolling the snail a bit of a challenge! They were tangled together, and wanted to twist around each other as I unrolled the snail.
In the first photo above, I unrolled the first seed snail. These were bottom watered, and you can see that the soil is moist all the way through, and the roots are all the way to the bottom. Some of them seemed a bit crowded, so I did adjust a few of them to space them out a bit. In the second picture, you can see where I’ve added the potting soil on top. From there, it got rolled up and taped closed again.
It was a lot bigger, of course. Only two could fit in the bin I was using, but I did have a second, slightly smaller one, available.
Here are the “potted up” onions. In the second picture, you can see that one of the snails is a lot smaller. That’s the bunching onions. It’s a good thing those didn’t need as much soil, because I was scraping the bucket to get every last bit out for that roll. I really didn’t want to have to sift more!
These are now back in the living room. They are the only things I have space for there, this year.
In order to do this, I had to completely clear my work table. That meant taking away the trays, lights, heat mats, and everything under and around them.
With the onions done, I could then arrange the work space to be ready for the next batch of seed starts. I have the top shelf from a plastic shelf that was too tall to fit in the old basement, and it was used last year to hold trays higher up. That’s what I am using it for again now.
Hopefully, the new seeds I sowed yesterday will germinate – and won’t get eaten! I had some concerns about not having heat mats under them anymore, but before I set up the shelf, I made sure to create a wall of cardboard around the back and at one end, then moved the heater so that it was blowing under the shelf. That made a big difference, and the warmth is kept under the shelf enough to warm the trays from below. Not that the heater is on all the time, but even when the furnace is on, now that the opening between the basements is uncovered again, there is heat blowing in and the cardboard, etc. holds it around the plants surprisingly well.
The insulation leaning at one end it just there until it’s needed later; the cardboard forms a “wall” behind it, out of frame. I’ve got the flaps of the cardboard box under the back legs, so I had to put something under the front legs to level the shelf. Then I set up the insulation pieces, which protect the cutting mat from warping, and the heat mats, ready and waiting. With the seedlings so close to the shop light, the plant lights aren’t needed for now, so they’re just clamped to the table in the front. There is no place to clamp the lights to use them on top of the shelf, anyhow. Everything gets plugged into a power bar with USB ports that I have set up above my work table.
As for our next seed starts, I don’t think I’ll be using the seed trays again. They are all smaller seeds, and for the space, I think I will do more seed snails. I wouldn’t me making them as deep was what I used for the onions, though. More like a third of that height. I have lots of that packing foam available.
I need to remember, though: do not use painters tape to attach them together to make a longer strip. One of the onion rolls started to split at the tape while I was rolling it back up again. It doesn’t like moisture. I’ll have to see what alternatives we have.
That won’t be needed for another week or so.
For now, I’m just glad I don’t need to sift more of that potting soil for a while!!
The Re-Farmer 