garden

Our 2026 Garden: Yellow Celery – I hope this works!

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Well, it was time.

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!

That done, it was time to prepare the seedlings.

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.

Well, we shall see, soon enough, I guess!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: “potting up” the onions, and setting things up

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Okay, I got some good progress today!

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.

Then it was time to get the onions ready.

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.

My poor little peppers and eggplant.

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.

Which you can see better in this next picture.

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

Our 2026 Garden: morning seedling mystery

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With our seedlings starting in the basement, I make a point of checking on them at least twice a day. In the evening, I turn on the heater and spend some time down there, getting my steps in if I need to. The celery is doing particularly well, and I’ve been seeing new seedlings coming up, including from the “extra” seeds I added to the pre-germinated ones, just in case. There was one little eggplant seedling that had its seed case stuck on the tips of the seed leaves that I ended up very carefully removing and was surprised to see three seed leaves unfurl instead of two.

In other words, I’m keeping a close eye on things.

Which means I immediately noticed something wrong this morning.

The first picture in the slide show above is the seedling that had 3 seed leaves. You can see part of one of them nearby. The other two, and half the stem, are gone.

I tried to zoom the next picture in, but the stem of that Sweet Chocolate pepper is cut right to the surface. The next picture is also a Sweet Chocolate, while the last one is a California Wonder.

If these were outside, I would be thinking that insects got to them. But these are trays in my basement. One of my daughters suggested it might be mice. We do have at least one mouse in the ceiling of the addition – the skittering drives the cats nuts – but there has been zero evidence of mice in the basement. There was also no disturbance in the soil that a mouse would cause if it was moving around the top of the tray. Plus, these damaged seedlings are sort of all over the place on the tray, and it would be odd for a mouse to get just those ones and not, say, the entire tray.

So what on earth chomped on these seedlings???

Very strange!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: starting tarragon and summer savory

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I had been thinking to start more seeds tomorrow, but I expect to be out and about and decided to just go ahead and do some today.

There are flowers and herbs that can be started in February in our climate, but I had only four in mind. After reading more on what the flowers – cosmos and hollyhock – needed to be started indoors, I decided to hold off on them. Instead, I went through two of my herb seeds that needed the longest start up time before our last frost date. Russian Tarragon and Summer Savory.

The seeds for both are very tiny and would have been ideal for the seed starting kits I got a couple of years ago. The cells are quite small and there is a USB powered full spectrum light disc for each dome.

I couldn’t find it.

It had all been stored in the original box in the sun room, but the sun room got completely emptied and cleaned out in the fall. I thought I’d put it in one of the storage shelves or one of the storage bins, but I couldn’t see it anywhere. I didn’t pull the bins out completely to look, as that would require far too many cat-blocking things to be moved out of the way, but they are semi-transparent, and I couldn’t see anything through the sides. It’s possible the box was buried in one but, for the size of it, it is highly unlikely it was in one of the bins and I wouldn’t see it.

I also didn’t want to use my new 72 cell tray for just two items. In the end, I grabbed a biodegradable seed starting strip I had left from previous years. It had two rows of five cells that I separated.

The drain tray with the cardboard buffer between it and the heat mat had space available, so I removed the buffer. The strips got filled with seed starting mix pre-moistened with hot water – which cooled down fast, but was still warm by the time the seeds were sown. With their tiny size, I scattered tiny pinches of seeds over the surface, then topped them with vermiculate. I keep a smaller amount of vermiculate handy in a covered container I refill as needed. Over time, a vermiculite dust has started to accumulate, and I tried to use more of that, rather than all larger chunks.

I also made sure the drain tray had water in it for the peat cells to absorb. One of the issues with the biodegradable pots and seed strips is that, as they dry, they tend to suck the moisture out of the growing medium inside. I try to keep them moist through bottom watering to prevent that. It does mean they become pretty fragile and difficult to move around, but that’s something I can work around.

Without the cardboard buffer over the heat mat, I wanted to have some sort of buffer for the things that are already germinated – the celery and the one luffa, in this tray. Something that wouldn’t disintegrate in the drain tray’s water. You can see in the photo that I put a piece of rigid insulation under the celery, but I was not happy with that, as it prevents bottom watering. I ended up rearranging things so the celery was on the far side, with the one sprouted luffa beside it, and then put a carboard buffer under the heat mat only on that side. That helped to push the water in the drain tray more towards the biodegradable strips, which will help them retain moisture longer.

Over the next few weeks, there will be more herbs started, plus there are some that I intend to buy as transplants rather than try to start them from seed, myself. We’ll see if the thyme, sage and oregano from last year were mulched well enough to survive the winter. Little by little, the old kitchen garden will be mostly herbs with a few vegetables, rather than mostly vegetables with a few herbs. 😁

The hard part for me will be not starting too many of any one variety! It’s always good to sow extra and then thin the seedlings, but I have this terrible habit of repotting the “spares”, because they’re usually all really strong and healthy looking! 😄

My biggest concern is having to use the basement for all this. It’s just too cold down there! Granted, the temperature is very steady, but the ambient temperature should be about 20-24C/68-75F, not 13-15C/55-59F. Even if we were using the living room, like we’ve done in the past, it’s only a couple of degrees warmer, but at least we could use the aquariums as greenhouses to keep a controlled area at a better temperature until things got large enough to handle being moved out.

Aside from not being able to safely move the tanks to the basement, we have got to figure out what to do with all the “stuff” that’s being stored in the “cat free zone”. We can barely move around in the living room anymore. Some things will be moved into the storage house, but they still have to be gone through, first, and the storage house is where my mother’s furniture went, so it’s got barely any room left – and I have very strict instructions, not to throw anything out!

*sigh*

One thing about gardening, starting seeds and planning it all out. It is a healthy distraction from the other stuff and keeps me from feeling overwhelmed!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: new seed starting set up

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Well, I got one package at the mail.

I’m glad I didn’t decide to just wait until the post office reopened in the afternoon. I forgot today is Wednesday. The store the post office is in closes at noon, every Wednesday, for inventory.

I was expecting the chicken coop to come in several large boxes, but there was only one small box. Only one package slip in my mail box. No coop. There was no “attempted delivery” this morning at all.

Hmmm.

Something to look up when I got home, and after I checked out my new stuff.

This is what I got.

Two new heat mats, two 4 light clamp lamps and one 5 light tripod pedestal lamp, with full spectrum lighting.

This gave me a chance to do a few things all at once.

Right now, my work table is covered with a gain self-healing cutting mat my darling husband got for me some time ago. Unfortunately, the heat mats make it warp. So I cut some pieces of half inch rigid insulation to size, to go under the heat mats.

The heat mat with the germinated plants in it got a piece of carboard between the mat and the tray as a buffer. Normally, I would stop using a heat mat as soon as the seeds germinated, but it’s so chilly in the basement, that’s not really an option. Especially since I will no longer use a light fixture that puts off a small amount of heat. The buffer will keep the seed starting mix warm, but not too warm.

The large celled tray now has a new heat mat under it. I’ve filled the last empty cells with seeds that were set to pre-germinate, even though they were not germinated yet. Then, just in case, I added a couple of fresh seeds into each cell. I did actually see a single Caspar eggplant starting to break through the surface, but nothing in any of the other cells. It’s entirely possible the seed starting mix, not being on a heat mate, but getting some heat from above, was too cold.

I also added new luffa seeds to the three Red Solo cups where nothing has shown yet, including the one where I couldn’t find the pre-germinated seed at all.

The new lights have a controller with several settings. There are five brightness settings – I put them at the highest. They can also adjust from red, blue or white light, or all three. I have it on all three. It can also be set to shut itself off after 6, 12 or 16 hours. I set it to 12 hours. Each lamp also came with an adapter, so they can be plugged in as usual, or can have USB. I have a power bar hanging above that has a couple of USB slots in it, so I decided to use that.

The only problem is that these are clamp lamps, and cannot stand on their own. Which means I had to move the tray set up to the front of the table for the lights to reach. Only at the front of the able is the surface narrow enough for the clamps. This worktable has a sheet of plywood on top of a narrower table top. The ends are too thick for the clamps.

With a full tray of cells, plus a second tray that’s only partially full, I set things up so that the full tray has five lights over it, and the other has only three.

I’ve still left the shop light above on. That light is manual, so I’ll need to shut it off and on, but that’s okay.

I am looking to pick up more seed starting mix when we are out and about tomorrow then, either on Friday or the weekend, I’ll start more seeds. Specifically, I’ll be starting herbs.

The tall light fixture will be set up in the living room. The onions in their seed snail rolls are getting plenty of light, with the shop light lowered to their level, but the other plants around them could really use better light! That room gets the morning light, and that’s it. It’s pretty dim, the rest of the day. We don’t have a lot of plants anymore, after repotting and donating most of them to the large animal rescue that took Poirot’s orphan kittens last summer. That, at least, will make it easier to give them proper lighting with this new lamp.

The lights themselves were very reasonably priced. The smaller lamps were under $25 each. It was actually cheaper for me to buy as a quantity of two separately, than to buy a single 2pk, which is weird. The larger lamp was under $40, regular price, and I got that one on a 10% off sale.

That done, I went looking to see what happened with that coop delivery.

Now, when placing the order, I was really surprised that would be delivered by Canada Post. When checking the tracking for the two packages I was expecting, they were the same. They even went through the same delivery depots at the same time, though the lights were ordered several days before the coop was.

Any time an order arrived, the trackers say “delivery attempted”. Of course, no delivery is attempted at all. The packages are just left at the post office for us to pick up with the regular mail.

Today, however, the coop’s tracking now said “undeliverable” and “location unknown”.

It also said, Fed Ex.

*sigh*

If I’d known is was going to be Fed Ex, I would have used our physical address. They have actually found us and delivered to us before.

I tried using the “contact shipper” link on Amazon, which took me to a page with a list of delivery companies.

None of them, Fed Ex.

So I went to their website and eventually found a customer service number to call.

After going through the robot sentinel, I actually got to talk to a real human being! Not only that, but he was awesome!

I gave him our physical address, including both the name and the numerical designation for our road. He put me on hold to work on it, then had to come back to ask more confirming questions. I told him, our address doesn’t exist on Google maps. He did, however, find a road with the numerical designation – but under the name of our municipality, not our little hamlet. So I had to explain that that section of road ends at a crossroad, then restarts a short distance off before continuing for several miles. It’s those several miles that are the empty void in the map, and we are in the void. In the end, he was able to take directions and instructions on how to get to us, and how to find our driveway – with the warning that if they miss our driveway, they’re not going to find the next one to turn around in for another mile. I also told him about the sign we have, with our physical address on it, and arrows pointing the way, at the turn off. Because we’ve had this problem before!

We had a lot of laughs while working this out.

I asked if they would be delivering tomorrow, and he said it was very likely. So I told him, I’ll be out for most of the day, though there will be someone home. I let him know we would leave the gate open, and the garage, and the package can be delivered into the garage. I don’t know how many boxes this is going to go into, but it’s warm enough that I don’t mind not parking the truck all the way into the garage, so make room for the boxes.

We will need to figure out where to assemble the coop. It needs to be relatively close to the house, on level ground, and in an area that doesn’t get flooded out in spring melt. Wherever we decide to set it up, we’ll probably have to level the ground. We really don’t have level ground anywhere!

On the plus side, this is a relatively small coop. It would be easy to move, if we ever need to. It could even get set up in the main garden area, where we can let the chickens help prepare the soil for us, where more raised beds are going to be built. The coops is just under 4′ wide, and just over 6′ long. The raised beds we will be building in the main garden area will all be 4′ x 18′. It could be set up where a new bed is planned and either moved 6′ every few weeks, or an extended run could be built to cover the 18′. I’ve got enough chicken wire for that. I’d just need to find the materials to frame it out. The coop design I got has the eggs boxes and roosts above and an open run below, with wire mesh walls. It would be easy to make a door to access an extended run. The only hitch is that access to the nesting boxes are at the ends, so a run on the end would make it harder to reach.

Hmmm… Things to think about.

We’ll have snow on the ground for quite a while yet, though, so there’s plenty of time to figure it out.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: West Coast Seeds order

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Yes, I ordered more seeds. 😄

There is a method to my madness, though!

First up, this is my first order from West Coast Seeds, a Canadian seed source that comes highly recommended. I used the Gardening in Canada affiliate link, so Ashley gets a cut. I gain so much from her videos, it’s my little bit to support her.

The other reason I wanted to order from here is because of my current seed starts. When I turned the light on over the trays in the basement, I decided to check on my luffa. Of the four pre-germinated seed, only one has emerged and it still just as seed leaved.

Yes, I dug around to check the others.

With the first one, I started off gently moving the seed starting mix aside, but there was nothing. In the end, I was digging around aggressively, and there was no sign of a seed. Which means it rotted away. The remaining two seeds, I did find when I initially, very gently, most the seed starting mix aside, stopping as soon as I touched a seed. There is no side of growth, though.

It may be that, even on the heat mat, the basement – and, therefore, the seed starting mix – it just too cold.

These seeds were ones I got from MI Gardener and have a days to maturity of 120. Thanks to Gardening in Canada, I learned that West Coast Seeds has a variety of luffa that needs only 55 days to maturity! I could actually direct sow those and get luffa!

Of course, I can’t just order a single pack of seeds, so I went looking.

This is what I ended up getting.

From the top (all links will open in a new tab):

Giganthemum: This is something that Ashley from Gardening in Canada had in her recent seed haul video. Yes, I already have bread seed poppies. This variety, however, is supposed to get seed heads as large as a baseball! It has edible seeds, which is the main reason for ordering them. I have a space selected to grow bread seed poppies as a perennial, where I will allow them to re-seed themselves. What I will probably do is find another such location, in another part of the yard, and grow both varieties.

Showy Milkweed: this is the main variety of milkweed for Monarch butterfly conservation efforts. I’ve got an orange variety of milkweed that I have not been successful with. Hopefully, we’ll be able to get this variety established as part of our efforts to attract more pollinators.

Silky Sweet turnip: I already have some white turnips winter sown. I chose this variety because it just sounded like it would be really tasty. It matures in only 35 days and is a cool weather crop, so this can be succession sown throughout the spring, and again in the late summer/fall, if we want.

Emerald F1: This is the luffa gourd that matures in only 55 days! It’s listed as a dual purpose gourd, as the immature gourds can be eaten, but I think that’s true of all luffa varieties. We might try eating some, but that I want are those sponges!

Patterson F1 onion: Okay, yes, I have my own saved onion seed, plus red bunching onions and red bulb onions started. My saved seed is a mix of red and yellow bulb onions. I chose these because I wanted to be sure of yellow onions, and they are described as being exceptional storage onions. Unless I start them as soon as they arrive, though, these will be for next year.

Red Noodle bean: I couldn’t help it. I just really, really want to successfully grow the red noodle bean at least once! When I tried to grow them last year, I had an amazing germination rate, the seedlings exploded into growth, got to about 6-8 inches tall, and then stopped. They never got any bigger, and I don’t know why. I can make guesses, considering the horrible growing conditions we had last year, but they are still just guesses. I have quite a variety of bean seeds, both bush beans and pole beans, as well as varieties for drying, so we will have lots of choices, once the soil warms up enough for direct sowing.

There we have it. My first West Coast Seeds order.

Oh, my goodness! I just checked my Amazon tracking. My chicken coop and my lights and seed mats have arrived!

If I leave right now, I can get there before the post office closes for 2 1/2 hours over lunch.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: eggplant and peppers

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A couple of days ago, on checking the seeds I’ve set to pre-germinate, it looked like some were just starting to show radicals. Nothing ready, but it seemed they soon would be.

So I grabbed one of my deep celled trays and prepared it in advance. These trays have 21 cells, and I’m looking to have 1 row of each of the seeds I have pre-germinating right now. The seed starting mix in the cells are all pre-moistened, ready and waiting.

When I tried pre-germinating seeds last year, I let them sit for probably too long. Their roots started to go into the damp paper towels and had to be very carefully pulled free. From what I’ve been seeing online, they really should be potted as soon as the radicals appear.

So that’s what I’ve already done with the luffa.

Yesterday, that first seed I saw that looked like it was starting to show its radical – a Caspar Eggplant – had started to germinate. Just the one. So I planted it into a prepared cell, then topped it with vermiculite, partly so I could easily tell which cell has a seed planted in it.

Today, I found another eggplant, plus some Sweet Chocolate peppers.

I would prefer to have these on another heat mat, but I only have one. The light fixture above them, however, does put off some heat. With smaller seeds closer to the surface like these, it will actually be enough to affect them.

I did have to raise the light fixture another inch to fit the large celled tray under it, but that should be okay. I’ll keep transferring seeds over as they germinate. With these larger cells, I should be able to avoid potting them up for some time, if at all.

As long as the pre-germinated seeds survive the transfer, I should have 7 plants each by using this tray. If I’d been using the Red Solo cups, I can fit 9 cups in each of the bins I have to hold them, so that’s what I would have been shooting for as a total. Seven should be enough, and I am not expecting 100% germination rates, nor 100% transfer survival rates.

We shall see!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: starting peppers, celery and luffa

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Normally, today would be my day to go into the city for our first stock up trip for February. With the truck having issues and an appointment to get it checked tomorrow morning, today was a home day, instead.

Which turned out to be a good thing.

I didn’t think I’d pushed myself yesterday, but the pain started hitting last night, and this morning I could barely walk. I managed to feed and water the outside cats, grab a quick breakfast, pain killered up and went back to bed for a couple of hours.

Thankfully, that seemed to help a lot.

Which meant I was up to setting things up in the basement to start more seeds.

That included testing out the heat mats. I’d bought a new one last year, because the old one stopped working, but I tested it again anyhow. For a while, I thought I’d need to buy another heat mat, but the new one did eventually warm up quite nicely. The basement is always between 13-16C/55-61F, though it does feel warmer after we removed the cat barrier in the “window” between the two basements, now that we don’t allow the cats down there anymore. I set up just one of the lights, choosing the one that actually warms up a bit when it’s on.

Then it was time to get the set of seeds to start this early. I decided against starting thyme. I’ll see if the varieties we planted last year survived the winter under their thick mulch and blanket of insulating snow. If they didn’t, I will buy transplants, instead.

I also decided against trying the Sweetie Snack Mix peppers again, and will start more of the other two varieties, instead.

This is what I started today.

There’s the luffa, of course. I probably could have started those at the same time as the onions. There are sprouts in all four onion seed rolls now.

Then there’s the Caspar eggplant, a new variety I’m trying this year. The Golden Boy celery is the first time I’ll be trying to grow celery. The Sweet Chocolate peppers are a variety the girls suggested. They grew well when we had them before. When it comes to flavour, they really don’t find much difference between any of the varieties we’ve tried. The California Wonder Bell pepper is a new variety for us that I chose specifically because they are described as being thick walled.

I decided to pre-germinate the peppers, eggplant and luffa, as the seeds are larger and will be easier to move and plant, once the radicals appear. I could also use a damp wooden chopstick to pick up the pepper and eggplant seeds.

With the peppers, I was thinking a total of 9 plants. When it came to pre-germinating the seeds, though, I ended up going for 9 seeds each – though the California Wonder got an extra when one of the seeds I grabbed looked like it was damaged. We’ll see how many actually germinate.

I also started just 9 seeds of the eggplant. I’m hoping to get 4-6 transplants out of those.

I was seriously tempted to pre-germinate more than 4 luffa. Even with pre-germinating, they do struggle to survive. We’ll see how many germinate – and how many survive until transplant time. Last year, I started with four, three pregerminated, one didn’t survive being planted, and of the remaining two, only one really grew much at all.

When it came to dampening the paper towels for this, I made sure to use warm water, too.

As for the celery, the seeds are so tiny, I decided not to pre-germinate them. Instead, I repurposed a clamshell from strawberries. The holes on the bottom are fairly large, so I set a paper towel on the bottom to keep the medium from washing out the bottom. Normally, I pre-moisten the starting mix in a large bowl I have for that purpose, but for such a small amount, I filled the container with dry mix, then used the warm water to thoroughly soak it, first, making sure there were no dry spots. Then I pressed it down to get rid of any excess water, and ensure there were not air gaps.

I have a little seed dispenser that I used to scatter the seed lightly over the surface. With seeds that small, the hard part is keeping them from being too densely sown. Also because they are so small, I didn’t top them with more seed starting mix. Instead, I added a layer of vermiculite. That got a thorough spray with warm water.

All of these fit into a seed starting drain tray and are now set on the heat mat, under the light. The light has “legs” that fit on the ends of the aquarium we originally got it for, so it only needed a couple of the fire bricks I’ve been using as supports. The other light we have rested directly on the aquarium frame, so if we need to bring that one out, it’ll need twice as many bricks to get the same height. The handy thing is, as things grow taller, we can just add more bricks to raise the lights by an inch per brick.

For the peppers and eggplant, I’ve got some deep cell trays I can plant them into. The less potting up, the better.

In the beginning of February, I will be starting tomatoes. I will probably pre-germinate, then use the Red Solo cups for those. I’m still torn between starting three, or all four, of the new varieties I got.

Oh, who am I kidding. I’ll be starting all four.

It would also be the time to start herbs, such as tarragon and savory.

Hopefully, this will work out. Aside from the luffa, these varieties have a relatively short days to maturity on them. It’s not just frost free days we need to think about though, but soil temperature. Last year, we had such warm days in May, but the overnight temperatures were so low, we still couldn’t transplant our seedlings until well into June.

Hopefully, this year will be a much better growing year, without the drought, heat waves and smoke!

The Re-Farmer

Garden inspiration, and some updates

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We are still getting hit with the polar vortex. We’re not getting the storms hitting parts of the US, but as I write this, we’ve warmed up to -27C/-17F with a wind chill of -29C/-20F. We’re staying indoors as much as possible, and avoiding going out anywhere.

Which is frustrating, but I’ll get to the why of that, later.

First, the inspiration! This video showed up in my YouTube feed. I’ve never seen this channel before. Looks very informative.

We are fortunate to have the luxury of space in our garden – space that will be utilized for accessibility and mobility – but this video covers a lot of what we are planning on, including chickens and our food forest (in this video, it’s an orchard). Fencing the entire garden is not really an option for us, given just how big it is, and how many trees there are. Cattle panels are not an option, either. I keep hearing about how cheap they are, but maybe that’s a US thing, because every place I’ve looked, they are ridiculously expensive. I’ve had stucco wire recommended by my cousin. Those are a lot more affordable, but obviously, not as heavy duty.

I’ve been wanting to have chickens for quite a few years now, and intended to build a portable coop large enough for at least a dozen chickens. That just hasn’t been happening, for a variety of reasons. So we’re breaking down and are going to try to buy a small chicken coop, with an enclosed run, on a payment plan. It’ll only fit up to 6 chickens, which would be enough to keep us in eggs a bit. That can tide us over until we can build something larger and house meat birds, too.

All in good time.

Now for the updates.

My brother got a call yesterday.

My mother’s panel for a personal care home has been approved!

That was waaaaayyy faster than I expected! They must really need her room. 😁

It does mean that she is no longer covered by our health care system, and is being charged by the day as a long term care client, rather than a patient. Meanwhile, they will find a bed for her in a temporary long term care facility and transfer her, once that happens. I expect that to go relatively quickly, too, if only because they need to free up the room she’s in.

My brother has already cancelled my mother’s cable, and today he’s gone over to pack up the cable box to send back to the company, before going to the hospital. He found a fairly recent photo of our vandal to include on her file, so that staff know who to look out for, and wanted to get that over as quickly as possible.

Now we need to focus on clearing out my mother’s apartment – but don’t throw anything away!!

She is so attached to her material goods, even to the point that she wants to control what happens to some of them to the next generation. She doesn’t actually have anything of value, really, other than in her own mind, or sentimental value – and by sentimental value, I mean for me and my siblings, mostly, because she doesn’t seem to actually have sentimental attachment to anything. She quite happily destroyed things that belonged to both my late father and my late aunt.

I need to get to my mother’s apartment and start packing and cleaning, bit by bit.

Hence the frustration.

I intended to start this some time ago, but with the cold, and now the check engine light turning on again with the truck, I have been leery of going anywhere. We only have one vehicle, and if that breaks down, we are in serious trouble.

*sigh*

I just checked the temperatures again, and it’s actually gotten colder instead of warmer. It’s still a few hours before we’re supposed to reach the high of our day.

Tomorrow is looking to be less severe, though, so I might try to head over then. After tomorrow, the extreme polar vortex temperatures should be over, and we’ll just be dealing with normal cold again, and I should be able to head over regularly.

I don’t expect we’ll have it empty by the end of the month, but we might. It’s the bigger furniture that’s going to be an issue. The loveseat she has, which matched the sofa that’s still here on the farm, is broken, though not badly. It will likely be thrown out. The mattress and box spring will have to be thrown out, of course. The rest…

*sigh*

She crammed so much into that little apartment.

My brother and SIL assured me, we’ll figure it out.

At least I won’t have to worry about all my mother’s papers, pictures and basically anything fabric. That’s my sister’s problem. We will be dealing with her kitchen supplies, nic nacs and furniture. My brother and SIL can’t really take anything, other than the papers my brother needs to take care of my mother’s affairs as PoA. I doubt they’ve even finished unpacking themselves. Where they are now is meant to be temporary, as they’ve gotten on a list for a privately run supportive living apartment in a complex that was still under construction when they sold their acreage. The waiting list was already years long but, once there’s an opening, they need to be able to move quickly.

Little by little, it’ll get done.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2026 Garden: starting onions

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Today, I finally got around to starting our onion seeds.

Usually, I start onions by densely sowing them in trays. Onion roots can handle quite a bit of abuse. When it’s time to transplant, I just pull them apart as I go. The problem with that, is, the roots do get pretty tangled together, and there have been times when I’ve even had to use water to wash away the growing medium in order to get individual seedlings out.

This time, I wanted to try something different.

I’ve been seeing the “seed snail” method that got me curious. Basically, seed starting mix it laid out on a strip of something – plastic, cardboard, paper towel, etc. – and rolled up. Seeds are planted at depth at the top, covered with more seed starting mix, and it’s done. When it’s time to transplant, the roll is undone and there is less root disturbance when accessing the plants. If the plants need to be “potted up”, it can be unrolled, more starting mix added, then rolled back up again.

In looking it up more, I see people using this method for pretty much everything, including things with very large seeds that grow pretty big. I’m not so sure the method lives up to the hype for larger things in particular, but something like onions? It seems perfect.

The thing that I was most curious about was, the material used to make the roll. One article I read, which was not positive towards the method, used paper towel. I can’t imagine using something that practically dissolves in water, over time! Others described using heavy paper or cardboard. I don’t really have anything like that, in the size and shape needed. I’ve also found that using paper products tends to wick moisture out of the growing medium, away from the plants, and need more watering. Even with the biodegradable pots, I’ve found the pots themselves need to be kept wet, or they start drawing moisture away from the plants.

One thing mentioned as working well was the thin foam sheets used to wrap breakables for packing.

Did I still have some?

I quick look in a storage bin in the root cellar, and I found I had plenty!

So that’s what I used.

Before I started on that, though, I prepped the last of my seed starting mix from last year. It had quite a lot of pieces of wood and such, which would be more of a problem with a seed snail. I wanted to sift it, but didn’t have a sifter. In the end, I used a metal colander with finer holes all over, and sifted it into a giant mixing bowl.

I got quite a bit of larger material out. I also had some concern that I might not have enough sifted started mix for the project.

I had four seed options. There were our own saved seed, which is a mix of red and yellow bulb onions. Then there were the seeds I got from MI Gardener. Red Long of Tropea, which are very much like the Tropeana Longa onions we’ve successfully grown before. Red Wethersfield, which we tried but did NOT successfully grow before, and Red Beard Bunching onion.

I was at first thinking to do the bunching onions later, but they are 110 days to maturity, while the other two are 100 days to maturity, so I prepped four strips. I taped shorter pieced together for the length, then folded and cut them in half lengthwise. That resulted in two strips of about 31 inches, and two of about 29 inches long, and about 6″ wide.

That sifted seed starting mix was absolutely beautiful to work with! So soft and fluffy!

Each strip got a layer of starting mix about a quarter inch thick, laid out right to the edge of one end and the bottom. The top had about an inch empty, and the other end had about 8″ empty. I had my work surface covered with a repurposed clear garbage bag, which actually made it easier to roll them up. I could lift the plastic up against the base of the snail, to keep starter mix from falling out.

I prepped masking tape ahead of time. Four were labelled. After rolling up the snails, I used a black piece of tape to hold it together near the bottom, before tucking it into a bin. After they were all rolled, I sowed the seeds and added the labelled strips of tape to hold it together near the tops.

In the first picture here, the seeds are sown, more seed starting mix was set on top and every so gently tamped down to get rid of any air gaps. In the next picture, they’ve been topped with vermiculate.

Once topped with vermiculate, they got a very thorough watering with a spray bottle, then more water was added to the bottom of the bin they’re in, so they can be watered through capillary action, too. Last of all, the bin’s lid was laid on top to act as a moisture dome.

This was all done in our basement dungeon. I don’t have any of the grow lights, the heat mat, trays, etc. ready. I won’t need them for quite some time yet. So these went upstairs to the cat free zone (aka: the living room). It’s not particularly warm there, but warm enough. Plus, the window gets full sun only for a few hours in the morning, so we have supplementary light above.

It should be interesting to see how this method works out.

In the past, when densely sowing seeds in trays, I would usually finish off the package. This time, there are seeds left in all three packets – plus there is lots of our saved seed. So there is the possibility of trying again, if this doesn’t work, as long as they get started early enough.

Anyhow. The main thing for now is, the onion seeds are started!

First seeds started indoors, for our 2026 garden.

Yay!!

The Re-Farmer