February 19, 2012 - Sunday's Seedlings

The new seedling rack has taken over my bedroom!

Four of the shelves now have full sized 4' lights. I bought two of them this week, which means I might not have to "borrow" the shed lights this year. Unless I get really carried away with planting, which is always a possibility. Three shelves are already filled, so the lettuce will probably be moved to the laundry room and put under the 2' light soon. Actually, it could probably go out on the front porch most days now.

I have decided to keep all four of the Mini Gold tomato plants that grew. I had only planned on trying to keep one growing inside to maturity, which will be the big one on the left (they were all planted at the same time). Now I think I might try to keep the other three growing until they can be planted out on May 1, and I'll put them in my three front planters....the ones that have always held flowers in the past. I'll plant them as Ed suggests....the tomato as a "thriller", some Dark Opal basil as a "filler" and sweet allysum as a "spiller".

The Southport White Globe onions aren't doing so great. They don't seem to have many roots, and fall over quite easily. This container was planted with 80 seeds, and I'll be lucky if half that many survive to be planted outside. The identical container, with identical seeds, never did sprout any seedlings. I finally scraped off the top layer of seeding mix so I could reuse the rest of it, and noticed two tiny sprouts. I ended up scraping that layer into a pot outside. Maybe something will eventually take off.

I should be eating fresh baby Red Sails lettuce in a week or so!

The Tall Utah #527OR, Improved celery has been thinned to one per Dixie cup. It's growing well.

Parsley, Parris Island Romaine lettuce and Chioggia beets.

More beets. This is my first try at starting them indoors. Most have been repotted into individual Dixie cups, but I'm not so sure it's not a waste of expensive seed starting mix to plant them individually like this. I probably should have done them in six pack cells and just snipped off the extra seedlings.

More beets.

And another planting of lettuce, Wild Garden Mix from Ed, just beginning to show.

Not shown:

Several Dixie cups of Johnny Jump Ups from Debbie Clegg. I was surprised at how quickly they germinated! I thought they'd be really slow, like the parsley, but they were up in six days.

24 soil blocks of Harris Model parsnips, not yet germinated.

12 soil blocks of Tyee spinach, the first one germinated today.

2 Dixie cups each of parsley and New Zealand spinach. I didn't think the first planting of parsley was going to grow, so I planted more. Now, like last year, I'll have way more than I can use.