Saturday, March 27, 2010

It's been so long and seed starting

Mass plantings on top of lettuce and basil.
Soil blocks with tomato, borage, peppercini's, parsley, cilantro, etc.
Transplants that survived the first planting.
My most gorgeous tomato plant already needing a one gallon pot. :)


Hi all,

It has been so long since I last posted here. After July life got a little crazy, not the best excuse, but life happens.

So, here I am again seed starting time again. And I have a new helper, hence the new pic on my profile. I have a new man who is ready to support my love in life, farming. Life is grand.

So, here I am planting seeds and honing my skills. After the last couple years of doing intensive planting and using newspaper pots I've gone back to what works. Soil blocks and lots of wormy goodness. I did also do some mass planting with basil and lettuce.

My first planting was in February, but because I left on a little Valentine's weekend excursion and didn't leave the best watering system for my dad to water the soil blocks with I only got a few sprouts. So, started some new plants this last week, and they are sprouting like gangbusters.

The mix I used this time for the seedlings is the same as the one I used in 2007. 1/3 organic potting soil, 1/3 worm castings, and 1/3 perlite. I bought some worms last week and have been using the worm juice from my bin on the transplants I have from my first planting and they have had a huge growth spurt. Next I use my handy dandy soil blocker, plant my seeds and use my new awesome sprayer to keep them wet until they sprout. So far I'm having the awesome luck I was having 3 years ago. The newspaper pots I was using seemed to make my soil in my seedlings moldy which caused rot and not many of my plants made it. So, I'm going back to what works and I'm very happy with the results.

So, I'm not sure if I'm going to try the intensive planting again, but I know I will do some more winter sowing. Tomato plants and start some flower seeds on December 21st this year. :)

More pictures

Tomato and Borage sprouts from the soil blocks above. Happy little guys. :)
Winter sown snap dragons. They grow so easily this way. They love the cold.

Seed Starting Pics

Peter Pepper seedlings. Hooray!
My transplants as of 3/18.
Tomato transplants.
Luffah gourds.

More pictures of seed starting

Seed starting set-up in the greenhouse.
My seedlings so far.
Loofah gourds as of 3/2
My largest tomato seedling as of 3/2.

Seed starting set-up

Soil blocks I started in February. The top right you can tell my son is just starting out making soil blocks.