Started peas soaking in bowl; tomorrow will move them to paper towels

^^^

Started tomatoes, tomatillos, and ground cherries

(The tomatillos are a purple variety, my first time trying growing tomatillos.)

(The ground cherries are from the collected seeds from a plant that grew really well in patio stones.)

Basil round 2 started bec several of round 1s dried out due to not enough watering and being in vermiculite

^^^

Basil started

^^^

Hardies starting to harden off -- and they will live downstairs/outside full time

Finally the days are becoming mild enough to start hardening the hardies.

I'm not babying them much in terms of being the shade -- putting them out for as long as the day is mild enough.

Won't start them in sun until later and will definitely do the sun part gradually.

Fungus gnats are still VERY much a thing so I'm glad to have these downstairs / outside.  When they come inside at night I'm covering them to prevent the gnats from invading everywhere downstairs.

Zinnias started

 Random assortment of talls, and yellow shorts.

Fungus gnats GALORE continues

The dunks truly seem to have done NOTHING.

SOOOOO many flies in the yellow sticky traps.

Several newly emerged seedlings have gone kaput, I'm guessing some of which are related to the gnat babies.

Started round 2 of sweet peppers (low germination in round 1)

^^^

Started sweet peppers (California wonder and Hungarian Sweet)

Amidst the hoards of fungus gnats, the seed-starting must continue...

OMG THOUSANDS OF FUNGUS GNATS ARE BEING TRAPPED!!!! Have added 5 of the big yellow hanging traps

^^^

Fungus gnats round 2 -- they are back with a vengeance -- seems the mosquito dunks did zero!?!

As of a few days ago, the fungus gnats are back with a vengeance.  Put out new sticky traps and many have been caught.  I can't understand why -- obviously this is a new batch that hatched, but how did they survive the mosquito-dunk water?  (Which I'm still using -- never stopped.)

Anyway, will continue to use the dunk water and sticky traps.

Stevia: Started round 4 (looks like a total of only ~5 from previous rounds might make it)

(So my experiment with mixing in alfalfa/kelp with the vermiculite didn't seem to do the trick, as a bunch of those flopped too.)

Zero fungas gnats nowadays

Can't remember the last time I saw a fungus gnat.  The yellow sticky traps are still out, and I'm still watering with the original bucket of mosquito dunked water.

I'll finish up the bucket of the water (prob another week before that happens), then will go back to regular water and see what  happens.

Forget-me-not and coreopsis started

All from previously collected seeds.

Witch Stick peppers started

I can't figure out if these are sweet or hot... but anyway started them today.  Not doing any other hots, not even jalapenos which are just so unpredictible in their hotness.

Will start the true sweet peppers in a few weeks.

Stevia experiment... adding soaked kelp + alfalfa

The round 2 stevias that went into vermiculite on top of soil seem -- fingers crossed -- to maybe be taking (?).  But I'm still worried that their roots won't make it to the soil/nutrition in time given the depth of the vermiculite.  So, I added a few dabs on top of the vermiculite, close but not on top of the seedlinguettes, of pre-soaked mixed alfalfa and kelp.  

And, for today's round 3 stevias that have all popped, I put them likewise but with a mix of alfalfa/kelp underneath them before adding the topping of vermiculite.

We shall see...

Started celery R2, stevia R3, and kale (from 2024 saved seeds) and chard

^^^

Haven't seen fungus gnats when watering -- seems promising

^^^

Mosquito dunks arrived -- placed half of one into big blue bucket of water

I'll let it sit for 24 hours and then start using the water to water the plants, to help with the fungus gnat situation.

Seeing a lot less fungus gnats nowadays due to the sticky traps, but they're still around and who knows how many are growing in the soil.

Stevia woes, arghhhh ----- trying again

Stevia is so fricking hard to get started!!!!  Looks like only 1 of the ~9 that had germinated might actually be taking after having been moved from PT to soil -- I think all the other 8 are kaput.

So, today, the next round of seeds that popped in PT, today, instead of putting them into the soil mix, I put a layer of vermuculite on top of the soil mix, then carefully placed the popped seeds, then just a few pieces of vermiculite on top.  I'm not sure if they'll be able to grow fast enough to reach the soil/nutrients before going kaput, but, this is at least worth a try.  There's quite a bit of vermiculite underneath them to provide buffer re: fungus gnats -- might be too much distance for their roots to travel to nutrition but we'll see.