starting seeds

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

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

Our 2025 Garden: potting up and wind damage

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Well, our plans to set netting over the beds I prepared yesterday got kiboshed. It was just too windy!

We did get some other stuff done, though.

Today, my daughter was available to help pot up some more pre-germinated seeds.

We got 4 of the 5 Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seeds potted up, as well as a couple of Honeydew. There were still 2 Honeydew seeds, and the Kaho melon seeds, that were not germinated, so we ended up combining them into one tray. I’d gotten rid of the one Cream of Saskatchewan watermelon seed that didn’t germinate, as it seemed like it was not viable, but the remaining Honeydew seeds look like they might still germinate. I’m not sure about the Kaho seeds, though. They may simply be too old.

With the pre-germinated seeds potted up, there wasn’t room in the tray for the container with the remaining seeds, plus the container with the Zucca melon seeds, so they got stacked. The large Zucca melon seeds would need longer to germinated, but it does seem like it’s taking too long. I’m not sure we’ll get any at all this year. We shall see.

My daughter and I then went through some of my herb seeds to figure out what else we could be starting inside. In the end, I decided that I will buy transplants, instead, for the ones we want. I also seem to be missing some seed packets! I’ve no idea what happened to them.

We also talked about some of the flower seeds. I’d picked up some Baby’s Breath for my daughters, as my older daughter in particular really likes them. They looked them up and, apparently, they are considered invasive in our area. Which I find strange, since we already have some in a small flower garden where my mother had planted them, ages ago. They barely survive and are certainly not spreading! It’s part of the reason I got more seeds.

Once we were done, my daughter ended up staying in the basement for a while longer to use the exercise bike, so we could keep the heater on for longer. Later, we both headed outside to feed the cats, then go through the garden beds. I wanted to make sure she was on top of the plans I had, in case they had to take over for me for some reason.

She was very happy to see that her tulips are coming up, and we even spotted a few grape hyacinths emerging. No sign of the snow crocuses, though. We pulled back the black tarp to check out where I was thinking of planting the asparagus and strawberries, and it does look like the weeds and crab grass have been killed off well enough to use the space. The only issue will be the roots from the nearby elm trees, and I’m really hoping we can finally cut those down this year. In trying to clean the area up, I found stumps that showed others have tried to clear them away in the past, and they grew back, so I’ll have to take that into account when we finally get those taken down. It still blows me away, how much their roots have been getting into the garden beds and choking things out.

We checked on the beds that I want to cover with the netting, and had to refill more holes dug by the cats. Very frustrating, that we couldn’t cover them because of the wind.

Speaking of the wind, in the next photo of the slide show above, you can see an area in our spruce grove I was finally able to get to. I tell that we lost a few trees over the winter, and saw some that look like they came down within the past day or two. Cleaning up in there is going to be a huge job!

We checked on the netting I put over the bed at the chain link fence yesterday. Much to my surprise, one of the supports at an overlapping section had been completely pulled up and almost took a few others with it! It seems like the extra netting with the drawstring that would normally be the end of the row cover got caught somehow. Hopefully, that won’t happen again, and there was no damage.

The portable greenhouse was getting some wind damage, though.

In the last photo in the slideshow above, you can see the tear along the zipper. It has gotten bigger – big enough that cats could easily fit through, if they wanted. I’m not sure how to reattach it to the zipper. I did add some clear duct tape above the tear, in hopes it will prevent it from tearing more. We also found a tear in one corner where the tie downs are attached. The loop of fabric the cord was tied to actually tore loose from the plastic. The loop is part of a tie that is fastened to the frame itself on the inside, so it can’t go very far. The clear duct tape came in handy to cover the hole and, hopefully, prevent it from getting worse. I know the covers on these little greenhouses don’t last long, but we don’t even have any plants in it yet! High winds were why I’d hoped to set it up in a corner closer to the house, but the ground is just too uneven there.

I’ve been looking at 6mm greenhouse plastic online. What I’d really like to do is get a roll of it, but that’s well out of budget right now.

I keep looking at various notifications on my weather apps, telling me things like, light rain coming soon, or, rain will end soon. The problem is, we’ve had NO rain at all. According to the weather radar, we’ve got a system right on top of us, and we’re supposed to get rain for the next couple of hours, yet I’m not seeing a drop of rain out my window. At this rate, I’m going to have to hook up the hoses and start watering the winter sown beds! I might even have to fill the rain barrel I’ve set up with the hose, to have warmer water for the garden beds, because we sure aren’t getting any rain to fill it! Nor are we expecting any, for weeks.

Tomorrow is supposed to be a cooler day than today, though with the wind, today felt downright chilly. I’m really hoping the wind dies down, so we can get those nets set up. Given my pain levels today, it’s probably good I’ve got an enforced day of rest.

My husband, sweetheart that he is, ordered some Tai Fu lotion (not an affiliate link), that came in today. We’ve used this stuff, in balm form, in the past and it helped, but we were a lot less broken back then. I’m looking forward to trying it when I go to bed tonight. I hope it helps. Lord knows, the prescription stuff I tried a few years ago didn’t do much, and I’m hurting a lot more these days, then at that time. Between the lotion, and today’s enforced rest, I’m hoping to be able to get some work done tomorrow!

We shall see.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: tomato seeds potted up, melon seeds pre-germinating

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Okay, so working on that pipe is not going to happen today. Pain levels are on the upswing and I know if I try to work on it now, I’ll mess myself up for days.

So, instead, I worked on garden stuff!

The tomato seeds were all showing radicals, with some even starting to show seed leaves. It was time to get them into the seed starting mix.

The first image has the Black Beauty on the left, Spoon tomatoes on the right. Those Spoon tomatoes were really doing well! It’s hard to see, but all the Black Beauty seeds had radicals showing.

The next image has the Sub Arctic Plenty on the right. As a short season variety, it’s no surprise that they germinated so quickly. On the left are the Chocolate Cherry. I was a bit surprised that these were the slowest to germinate. I would have expected the Black Beauty to take the longest, considering they have the longest growing season needed.

I had to moisten more seed starter mix for this job, and I made sure to use hot water for that. By the time the cells were filled and the seeds were being transferred out of their trays, the damp mix was still warm. Warmer than the damp paper towels the seeds were on. Now they’re in the tray along with the Turkish Orange eggplant (there’s 6 visible seedlings there), the luffa (all three have finally emerged) and sweet bell pepper mix (no sign of any of those, yet). The bottom of the tray got warm water, too – I wanted to make sure those square peat pots had plenty of moisture to absorb, so they don’t try out the seed starting mix.

That done, I went through my next batch of seeds and decided to go for it with the melons. The White Scallop seeds were set aside for now, as they can wait until May to be done. I got the containers all prepped and labeled ahead of time, and even got some markers labeled for when it’s time to put them into seed starting mix.

For the watermelon, I used my older Cream of Saskatchewan and Kaho seeds. The Sarah’s Choice melon seeds are also older, but the Green Flesh Honeydew packet is new seeds.

Then there are the Zucca melons. Which are the giants. These seeds, which I made a point of scarifying by scraping their edges with a utility knife, are also older seeds, so I made a point of choosing the plumpest, most solid feeling seeds. Which could have been any of them, really. They were in quite good shape. I started 4 seeds. These are the ones that started out so well last year, only to be decimated by slugs, so any transplants we get out of these are going to require extra protection.

Four seeds each was what I was shooting for; we over did it with melons last year, and I want to cut back. With the Cream of Saskatchewan, there were only 5 seeds left in the pack, so I set them all out. With the Kaho watermelon, there were only 3 seeds left in the pack, so I guess that balances things out!

They all got covered with dampened paper towel, and are now set up on top of the aquarium light fixture. At this stage, they don’t really need light, but they do need warmth. I didn’t want to set up the other heat mat yet, and the light fixture is ever so slightly warm. Not as warm as a heat mat, but warm enough. Once they germinate and get transferred into trays, they’ll get a heat mat. It should be interesting to see how many germinate. Especially with the older seeds.

After this, the next things we might start indoors are some herbs and a few back-up White Scallop squash. Those can be started towards the end of April or beginning of May. I’m hoping we’ll be able to start using the portable greenhouse at around the same time. It really depends on those overnight temperatures inside the greenhouse, as we have no way to heat it. We won’t have the option to use the sun room this year, as the space is pretty much all set up for the cats now!

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out.

It felt good to be able to do some garden related stuff on such a dreary day.

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: we have light!

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Yes!

Finally, I have replacement bulbs for the aquarium light fixture that has a built in timer. The package came in today’s mail.

I was a little alarmed when I saw it, though.

In the first image of the slideshow above, you can see a very distinct bend in the packaging!

Thankfully, in the next two images, you can see that the bulbs were well protected. The angled packaging the bulbs were taped into is very solid. In fact, I will be keeping it, as it will probably come in handy for something!

In the next photo, you can see the bulbs next to the fixture laying upside down on the table.

Not that there is a cover over the bulbs.

That was my first problem.

When we got the fixture, years ago, and assembled it, we were never able to get that cover completely on, so about a quarter inch of it was sticking past the end of the fixture, which you can see in the next photo.

Not a lot to grab on to, but it shouldn’t have needed any at all.

After removing the legs at that end, I fought with that thing for at least half an hour. I ran a utility knife blade between the cover and the tracks. I used WD40. I even found an angled tool that I used to try and lever it from the far end. Nothing worked.

I figured if I had some pliers or something to grip the bit sticking out, that might help. After looking around the basement, I found our old pair of vice grips.

Perfect!

I just needed to close the jaws more and…

…

…close the jaws…

…

…turn the adjustment screw to close the jaws…

(apply WD40 liberally)

Just turn that adjustment screw…

Nothing. It would not move.

Well, I’ve got a handy vice at the table. I’ll just get the vice to hold the adjustment screw and I should be able to spin the vice grips to tighten and loosen the jaws.

Yes. I put vice grips into a vice.

I made that vice as tight as I could. Tight enough that it was actually starting to damage the grip texture on the adjustment screw. I still ended up spinning the screw in the vice instead of the screw itself moving.

Okay, that wasn’t going to happen.

Well, if I found something thick enough, I could put that with the bit of cover sticking out and grip both. It just needed to be at least thick enough for the vice grips to close onto it. Maybe some wadded up paper towel.

Nope.

I tried a piece of leftover wood that almost worked. It was thick enough, but too wide for the vice grips to reach the bit of cover I was trying to grab.

More searching around the basement.

I ended up finding a small scrap of wood in the garbage can I have just for wood, sawdust and other burnables. It was uneven on one side, but that didn’t matter as much. I was finally able to grip the edge of the cover and pull on it.

It took several tries, getting it to move, little by little, before it finally came loose, and I could pull it out without the vice grips.

Once it was clear, I wiped it down along the edges, partly to get the excess WD40 off, but also to wipe off whatever was making it stick. There really wasn’t anything, so I used a utility knife in the track it slid into, to scrap what anything that might have been in there. There were two spots, one on each side, that seems to have something stuck in the track. One spot seemed to be plastic; when we got the fixture, the cover had a protective layer of plastic on it, and not all of it seems to have come off. The spot on the other side might have had some plastic in it, too, but there may also have been some mineral build up from when this was set above the big aquarium. The hinges on the glass covered broke, which is why we got a fixture with legs at each end, in the first place. The other one sat right on top of the glass covers.

So, that was finally off and the tracks cleared up.

I did not put it back on again.

Okay! The bulbs are uncovered. I just needed to rotate the bulbs to removed them.

Just… rotate those bulbs.

Rotate.

Is there a trick to this?

They simply would not rotate, and there was very little room to work with.

Looking closely at the connectors, I could see some black plastic that appeared to be some sort of lock? But how would I move those so the bulbs could be rotated?

I never did find out.

While fiddling with them at one end, I ended up breaking off one half of the black plastic.

At which point, I was able to rotate the bulb. The other end rotated fine; the black plastic rotated with the bulb. Which didn’t happen at the end I was working on.

Okay, that’s out, time to try the second one.

Once again, it would NOT rotate – until half the black plastic piece broke off!

After that, it rotated just fine.

*sigh*

No matter. I could now install the new bulbs. They fit just fine, and even rotated fairly easily into position.

*sigh*

Then I plugged it in to test it out.

I even remembered to flip the fixture onto its side, so I wouldn’t blind myself.

It worked!!! Yay!

It only took me almost an hour to do something that should only have taken a few minutes!

That finally done, I got it set up. I decided to take the other fixture out completely, and that’s now stored under the work table. The light with the new bulbs was set up, with bricks removed to make it lower. The shelve section I’d brought out earlier was set up over the whole thing. The tray with the winter squash was moved off the heat mat and is now under the shop light. That allowed me to remove one of the heat mats and center the tray with the eggplant, peppers, luffa and pre-germinating tomato seeds onto the other heat mat.

You can sort of see the new set up in the last photo. Instagram wouldn’t show the whole image, so the new light fixture looks like another surface over the seed pots.

This light fixture does put off some heat. When we were still allowing the cats in the living room while we had seeds started, we would sometimes see Fenrir, in particular, sitting on the light fixture, keeping warm. It isn’t much, but that will provide at least a bit of warmth to the winter squash tray above.

I had the heater running the entire time I was working on this, and it didn’t seem to make much difference to the room at all.

So that turned out to be a much bigger job than expected, but we now have more light for the seedlings.

If it weren’t for the temperature down there, the basement would actually be an excellent place to set up a plant room. Ah, well. We make do with what we can!

Meanwhile, I peaked at the tomato seeds, and I think I could actually see radical emerging on a couple of them! I’ll check again tonight, before I shut the lights down. If I really was seeing radicals, that would sure have been fast – they were set out to germinate only yesterday!

Not too shabby, that’s for sure!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: winter squash progress

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I really look forward to those bulbs I ordered to arrive. I’ve received a shipping notice, and they are on their way. I really need more light for the seedlings in the basement!

Here is how the winter squash was looking, this morning.

In the first image, you can see the Baked Potato and Mashed Potato squash are coming up nicely. Still no sigh of the Sunshine squash.

Normally, once seedlings are emerged like this, the tray would be taken off the heat mat. With the basement temperature being so low, I don’t want to take away the one consistent heat source. What I’ve done instead is add a cooling rack – I picked up several at the dollar store to use with my seedlings – on the heat mat, then put the tray on that. This puts a bit of space between the tray and the heat mat, so there is no direct contact, but there will still be at least some warmth from below.

The second image is of the two Arikara squash that are pushing their way through. After taking the photo, I added more water to the tray below (with the heat mat, it dries up pretty fast), I brushed aside some of the vermiculate to get a bitter look. Those seeds leaves are a LOT larger than what can be seen in the photo. They’re also still mostly encased in the seed shells. I’ve left the light on for the day and will check on them later. Hopefully, they’ll be able to shed their shells once the leaves start reaching for the light. Sometimes, they need a bit of help to get the shells off, so the leaves and unfurl.

Still no sign of the eggplant or peppers, but it hasn’t been long enough, yet. I believe both take a week to ten days to germinate in soil, and with the seed starter mix being cooler, even with the heat mat, I would expect them to be closer to the ten days than the seven.

Looking at the long range forecasts, it seems we’ll start having overnight temperatures above freezing consistently, by the last couple of weeks of April. By the end of May, we typically have overnight temperatures consistently at or above 6C/43F At that point, we can start direct sowing cold hardy, frost tolerant seeds.

Once the snow clears away from the garden beds, we’ll be able to start prepping the ones that have not been winter sown. I’m kinda hoping that I can get at the raised bed cover on the high raised bed and bring it around to the front of the house. I want to cover it with plastic, then set it over the winter sown bed in the old kitchen garden. The trick is going to be getting it covered securely enough that the cats can’t push through. The plastic cover will need to be temporary, too. I might need to replace it with netting, to keep the cats out later on. I think we still have some mosquito netting we can use, if we need to keep voracious insects out, too. Most of the mosquito netting we have is attached to the chain link fence over the garden bed, there, rolled up at the tops. They will be stretched out over the beds later, to keep the Chinese Elm seeds from burying and suffocating the seedlings. They can also serve to deter deer. The main problem I found last year is that, no matter how thoroughly I pinned down the bottom edge of the netting, the wind blows it loose, and it ended up fluttering like a sail. The mesh on the mosquito netting is great for keeping bugs out, but the weave is tight enough that the wind can’t blow through very well. The mesh on the other netting we have would work with the wind, but is too open to prevent insect damage.

With the pre-sown bed, we have the sunflowers and a few Montana Morado corn planted. If those survived the winter, they will grow much taller than the fence, to the netting won’t be useable – at least not how it’s set up now – once they get tall enough. We’ll have to find some other way to protect the bed from the deer.

All things to keep in mind over the next few weeks, as we wait for the snow to melt away, and we can finally get started on the garden beds again! One of my priorities will be to set up the trellis posts on the one low raised bed that’s ready for them. I want to be able to use them to trellis pole beans or peas in that bed this year. The other half of that bed is already planted with red and yellow seed onions. There should be space between the onions and the pole beans or peas available for something else, but I haven’t decided what, yet.

We’ll have lots of work to do, and not a lot of time do it. Thankfully the winter sowing – if it worked – will have given us a head start and give us time to work on other things, instead.

I am so itching to get out there and work, but there’s still snow on the ground!!!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: they’re aliiiivvvveeee!!!

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With the pre-germinated seeds potted up and the tray on top of a heat mat, I have been eager to see how long it would take for the seed leaves to break through.

Not long at all! It’s been only a week since the seeds were set up to pre-germinate, and here we are…

The Baked Potato squash have the most leaves emerged. There are some Mashed Potato squash pushing their way, or just visible, though the vermiculite. Even the Arikara squash is just visible through the vermiculate. Nothing visible on the Sunshine squash, yet. Nothing visible in the luffa, eggplant or peppers in the other tray, either.

Oh, and I checked the last luffa seed still in the pre-germination container. I gave it a squeeze, and it was hollow; just the shell left. So it’s 3 out of 4 seeds that successfully pre-germinated.

After taking the above picture, I pulled the winter squash tray out and rotated it on the heat mat, in case there were some warm and cold spots. The silver insulating material I put under it seems to be working; I could feel more warmth than when it was just the cardboard.

I have more of this insulating stuff left and was thinking of putting it around the drain pipe I was trying to clean out yesterday, in the general area where I think the gunk might be freezing. I know the bottleneck starts at about 6′ from the access point.

The problem is, for most of that area, access to the drain pipe is blocked by a heat duct and the frame built around the window on the inside, with a platform to hold a fan. It could be done, but I would definitely need someone else to give me a hand.

I’d also want to clean away the many years of dust, dirt and cobwebs first, too!

Though, now that I’ve looked at it, I am now doubting that ice could be the issue. There is that heat duct in the way. I would think any heat lost through the metal of the duct would be enough to keep things from freezing.

It wouldn’t hurt to have the pipe insulated in that section, though. I haven’t unrolled it, but there’s at least 6 feet of the insulating material left.

This stuff is turning out to be handy for all sorts of things, but insulating pipes is what the dimensions of this particular size of roll was designed for.

It seems to be doing well for keeping seed trays warm in a cold basement, too!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: we have radicals!

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After only two days!

But first, I need to share a funny.

My daughter and I did our first city stock up shop today, and one of the places we went to was a Walmart.

Where I found this.

Yeah…. that’s some savings for the original price! 🤣🤣

I don’t think that display of tea is even that price. I’ve bought it at other stores for less than the “sale” price, but a lot more than that “original” price! There were no prices on the shelves at all. Just the hilarious one above.

But I digress!

After we got home, everything was packed away and the outside kitties were fed, I was finally able to head down to the dungeon to check on the seeds that were set up to pre-germinate.

Wow! Talk about fast! It’s only been two days, and there are already radicals showing!

Even the luffa has one seed with a radical emerging! The only ones that aren’t showing radicals are actually the ones I expected to see first; the Sunshine squash seeds, which were showing cracks in their outer shells already. The Baked Potato squash are already 100% germinated!

Which means that tomorrow or the day after, it will be time to start putting them into pots.

I’ll have to make sure to warm the area, and dampened seed starting mix, first! The thermometer I set up on the work table was at 9C/48F That heat mat is really making a difference! The way things are going, I might end up setting up the spare clamp lamp with a 150w ceramic heat bulb over the trays, to make up for how cold the basement it.

We shall see.

For now, I’m just excited that the pre-germination is working out so well, and so quickly!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: Vesey’s seeds are in, and starting sweet peppers

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I was happy to see an envelop from Vesey’s today. These were the part of a larger order I made that could be sent right away. It was just two packets of seeds, and one of them was flowers, but I did want to get the peppers started right away.

With a days-to-maturity of only 70-75 days from transplant, starting the Sweeties Snack Mix this late should be okay. This mix of small sized bell peppers are something I actually see regularly in the grocery store, sold in packages with red, orange and yellow peppers, just like what is supposed to be in this seed mix. I’ve even bought them a time or two, so I know the family enjoys eating them. Which is good, since these are the only peppers we’re growing this year. We still have both dried and frozen peppers from last year!

While I was handling the moistened seed starter mix, I could tell it was way too cold for the seeds. The thermometer I have set up on the work table reads a consistent 10C/50F – which may have felt warm while I was outside, felt cold while in the basement! The container I use to hold the pre-moistened seed starter mix, however, is enameled steel, and it was sitting on the concrete floor.

Oops.

I now have a different set up and it no longer rests on the concrete floor. Hopefully, that will make a difference for the next time I have to start seeds!

I brought down a little heater and set it up to warm things on my work table. Since I had to wait a while, I did some clean up in the root cellar. We didn’t get to the last of the winter squash in time, and a bunch had to be cleared away. I decided not to put them in the compost ring, though. Instead, I spread them out in different areas to see if they would seed themselves. It’s more likely that they will be eaten by critters, but if a few seeds survive, we might have “wild” squash plants growing.

Once those were out, I took the time to clean and sanitize the shelves before getting back to the seeds. The only things we have left in the root cellar right now are onions and garlic. We keep forgetting that they are there!

As for the peppers, because these are a mix, there’s no way to know how many of each colour of pepper we’ll get. Depending on the germination rate, I might thin by transplanting. They should be fine on the heat mat for now, but once things start germinating, I’ll have to find some way to keep things warmer in there, since I’m not about to leave a heater running unattended in the basement.

Ah, well. We’ll figure it out!

Meanwhile, we’ve started our earliest seeds for now. The net ones I start should be the tomatoes, and those won’t need to be started for at least a week. The seeds set to pre-germinate should be potted up, by then. Hopefully, the bulbs for the other light fixture will have arrived. Not only does that fixture have a built in timer, but it also puts off a bit of warmth. The one that’s down there now doesn’t seem to get very warm at all.

It should be interesting to see how things work out, in this year’s seed starting dungeon!

The Re-Farmer

Our 2025 Garden: pre-germinating squash and starting eggplant

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We’re finally starting seeds indoors!

This is so much later than in past years, so we’ll see how it works out. We’re doing things a lot different this year!

While we are going to deliberately aim to have fewer transplants there year, I did plant extra seeds, just in case some don’t germinate. Of course, pre-germinating the larger seeds will make it easier to know if there are any problems with germination. With the eggplant, I used a 10 cell seed starting tray from last year and just filled it. Each cell has two seeds in it, though I think the very last seed I planted was actually two stuck together. Way more than we need, but we’ll see what the germination rate turns out to be.

I don’t plan to start any other seeds until the first week of April. Hopefully, some of the winter squash will have started to sprout before then, and can be planted. I am a bit concerned about the heat mat, though. It didn’t feel any warmer, by the time I left. I need to check it again later. It might not be working!

Okay, I just dashed down to the basement (… well… “dash” may be a strong word to use for me. 🤣) and checked, and yes, the heat mat IS working! I hope it’s got enough heat. The basement seems to stay at about 10C consistently right now.

This is way different than using the big aquarium as a greenhouse!

Well, we shall see how it works out. Worse comes to worse, I will sacrifice the heater in my bedroom!

The Re-Farmer