March 16, 2009: Sprouts Are Springing Up All Over

With the exception of the peppers I planted on March 13, everything else is starting to sprout. Tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, lettuce and mesclun are all showing signs of growth. I only had one single bulb, 18" florescent fixture and that certainly wouldn't be of much use with something like 168 seedlings, so I called in my son John. By this afternoon, I had a cute little "greenhouse" on the counter in the garage. It has two 4' double light fixtures, it's four feet wide, two feet deep, and high enough that I can add a wire shelf and two more light fixtures if I need them. He made it with an OSB top and bottom, framed it with 2x2s and stapled a double layer of heavy plastic sheeting on three sides. The front is a flap of doubled plastic sheeting that is weighted at the bottom with a 1x1, and has a big bungee cord to insure it stays shut. I can just undo the bungee and lift the flap, laying the weighted end on top of the box, and access the plants and lights. I have two heating pads, turned to low under the peppers and tomatoes. They, with the lights, are keeping the air at 70F. I'm going to add a sheet of aluminum foil insulation to the back to reflect light forward, and possibly a foil tent over the top of the lights to reflect the light down.






Look hard...the sprouts are yellow, the perlite is white. These were planted two days ago!

John is a good builder, a good thinker and a good son......he's going to build us a new garden shed this spring.

15 comments:

  1. Nice job on the mini greenhouse!
    I just love it when my boys(husband and son) do things for me. I feel so loved :-)

    Liisa

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  2. Nice light setup, it should certainly do the trick. That's pretty cool that you have sprouts in 2 days!

    The two varieties of peppers I seeded on the 12 are still no shows. If these ones take two weeks I think I might wear out a shot in front of the fridge from looking at them. The ones I plant in Feb only took 4 days, I wish they would fallow suit.

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  3. Lisa, I had both sons helping me today, and son-in-law had our yard all cleaned up and the rain gutters cleaned out when we got home...and daughter had busted her buns cleaning the refrigerator because I had forgotten to prop the doors open...it smelled like mildew1 Kids can be a good thing :-)

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  4. Sorry I dropped an "i" from Liisa!

    Dan, my peppers took 11 days to germinate. They were on a heating pad at a temp of 80F. Some of mine say they take up to three weeks to germinate, and the first ones I tried to grow took longer than that!

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  5. Wow your boys are quite handy. Looks great!

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  6. Thanks, Jenn. It's quite sturdy, the pictures don't do it justice.

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  7. Nice setup. I really need more light too, but I want to figure out if my LEDs work well enough to buy more of them, or if I have to go back to fluorescent lights. I'm going to have a maximum of about 80 seedlings in a month. They won't fit under my little light. I think about 50 would do fine there, but more would struggle too much. I'm going to have to do something soon. Maybe I'll just grow them outside when it warms up.

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  8. Daphne, I'm enjoying the setup...but today I have to figure out where to hang all of Mr. H's tools that I removed from that pegboard wall behind the greenhouse! He's not happy, so I'll probably have to sacrifice my garden tool pegboard so he can hang up all those wrenches and things he never uses anyway ;-)

    I saw a neat propagation chamber made of one of those under the bed storage containers. She drilled holes in the lid and inserted small Christmas lights. I wish I'd bookmarked the blog. I liked my picnic cooler propagation chamber, but it wasn't large enough to hold the big flats I'm using now.

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  9. I wish my boys were inclined to build things...no such luck. Hmmmm. I've got a window in the garage. Too bad I can't borrow your boys.

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  10. It's always amazing to me how quickly things sprout after they're planted! Lucky you to have men-folk around that are willing to help you out!

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  11. Amy, sprouts are really showing today! Now I can worry about "damping off" :-(

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  12. Here is some super strength foil I use to protect against freezing. It's impossible to tear and can be used over and over atticfoil.com

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  13. Anonymous, that is very similar to the insulating foil I have...mine is similar to bubble wrap (only foil on both sides) and is made to cover windows, so comes in much smaller sizes. I use it over and over to cover our AZ windows during the summer, but I had extra that I brought back with me to protect a potted plant, probably just enough to do the job. Thank you for the suggestion!

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  14. Granny, the firewall at work wouldn't let me view your blog, weird....Anyway, I'm glad you have a good setup now, and your son should be commended for a job well done. It's funny that you mention a garden shed...I'm about to start building one, myself! Of course i'll blog about it....

    EG

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  15. "the firewall at work wouldn't let me view your blog"

    EG, your firewall just knows how to keep the hot chicks from you!

    *Snicker*...sometimes I think I'm so funny...*snicker*

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