Sowed more petunias, and, some columbines

With how good those February-sowed petunias are looking, I was thinking, wouldn't it be cool to not buy any flowers this year because I'm using my own flower seedlings?  (Ok, perennials are the obvious answer here, but oh well.)


So, today I sowed another tray of the same petunias, as well as a tray of a veined variety that I couldn't resist buying at the store yesterday.


I also sowed a tray of several-year-old columbines that I found in my seed jar.  I didn't have any success growing those outside when I tried a few years ago, but why not give them a try inside to use up the rest of the seeds.


And yes, I'm starting to freak out just a little that I may end up running out of room under the lights!  Hence getting the fan going today, and some outside soil-warmers to get things ready for the first outside transplantings soon.

Petunia!

Can it be? Can it really, really be! A flower on one of my petunias!



And more on the way. Wow. Petunias have got to be the easiest thing to grow from seed. I love how there seems to be zero potential for legginess compared to the oodles of veggies where that can be an issue. Nice and stout!

Seedling update

I think the accidentally unlabelled tomatoes have made it clear which two are the Tiny Tims and which two are the beefsteak!



Very happy with some of the older Brussels, kale, chard, and onions -- they look great.



Generally, the other things are coming along too:



However, the cabbages aren't looking too great in general.  Seems some are just failing to thrive... but maybe they will rally.  Worse comes to worse, off to the garden store I will go for some good healthy transplants.  Loved harvesting the cabbage last year, hope to do it again this year one way or the other!

April 2nd sowing: Round two of bok choy, and, a couple more swiss chard

Round 2 of baby bok choy sowed.  3 joined-pots plus 1 singleton pot, 2 seeds each.  This time, I added in some left over vermiculite as I find the Go Pro mix dries up fast and hard.  Will see if the vermiculite makes a difference.

Also filled in a couple of gaps in the swiss chard.

Oh!  And, transplanted some of the older bok choys into their own pots.  Will see if they survive or not...

Begonia leaf!

Check it out!  Looks like a real honest to goodness actual begonia leaf is starting to form from one of the little nubbins!  Bummer it's one of the white plants -- give me some colour darn it!



Another view!  (Maybe I'll get a proper macro lens for my SLR sometime!  Flower mode on cheapie point and shoot not great!)




One of the colour plants also has a little nubbin (though not a leaf yet) -- so there is still hope for some begonia bonanza in the garden this year.

Fun to have little experiments like this that really don't matter whether they succeed or fail. (Woops, spoken like a true human... of course it matters to the plant!)

Peppers!

All is not lost! Overnight, 4 of the 5 round 1 peppers appeared!  That's 13 days from sowing to sprout.


Woo!



[Edited on 2 April to add that the 5th pepper has also since appeared!]

March 26th sowing: Baby bok choy; round 2 of peppers and celery; round 3 of swiss chard

Baby bok choy sowed.  4 joined-pots, 2 or 3 seeds each.

And, round 2 for these:Peppers:  5 pots, 2 seeds each.

• Celery:  3 pots, many sprinkled seeds.

And, round 3 for this:

• Swiss chard:  4 joined-pots, one unsoaked seed each.

Photo update on some the older seedlings

Petunias -- looking amazing!  So healthy!




Brussels sprouts




Kale




Cabbage -- sadly looking yellow whereas a few days ago it looked very healthy



Swiss chard




Onion



Tuberous begonia
No photo because nothing to show!  I think my tuberous begonias will be a big tuberous flop!

Woopsie -- Farewell to a cabbage and a brussels sprout

Two flops this week:

(1) In separating out a cabbage pot that had two plants, taking one out into its own -- the removed one is doing great, but the other one died.  I guess I disturbed the roots too much.  I've done similar dividings in recent weeks and that's the only one I've lost so far.

(2) In moving plants from one shelf to another, I broke the stem of a Brussels sprout.  D'oh! 

March 18th sowing update: Slow peppers and celery

All of the tomatoes and swiss chard germinated several days ago, no problem.

However, the peppers and celery are nowhere to be seen.  Might be too cool for the peppers?  A factor may be that for this sowing, I had placed the dome on a higher shelf which doesn't get much sun to assist in heating up the mini greenhouse.

Will sow some more peppers and celery today, with the dome on a lower, sunnier shelf.  If they don't work, I'll buy plants this year, and next year consider picking up a seed heating mat.

Oh!  And somewhere along the lines I took the tag out of my tomatoes, so now I don't know which is the Tiny Tim and which is the Beefsteak!  D'oh!  I'm hoping it's as easy as the shorter ones being the Tiny Tim, but don't know for sure.

March 18th sowing: Celery, tomatoes big and small, peppers, and round 2 of swiss chard

Things are hopping in the garden room these days!

Today, sowed the following:

• Peppers (sweet):  5 pots, 2 seeds each
• Celery:  3 pots, sprinkling of seeds since they're so tiny, hard to handle -- will thin later
• Tomato - Tiny Tim:  1 small pot, 3 seeds (will transplant to bigger pot later so can plant it deeper at same time)
• Tomato - big:  ditto

And, planted round 2 of swiss chard (3 joined-pots, 1 or 2 seeds each (can't remember)).

Before putting the new sowings under a dome:

The flops so far

Almost everything from all plantings so far have sprouted.  I am impressed!

The few exceptions: 

• 1 cabbage from round 1:  nothing seems to be happening, but will give it a little while longer.
• tuberous begonias:  So woeful.  2 of them have little pink sprouts so I removed them from the dome and put them under lights.  Will try to keep them well watered in the hopes of keeping the sprouts from shriveling up like their predecessor.  One has a faintly hairy root showing which I hope means signs of some kind of activity.  The others -- no signs of anything yet.

Gentle watering thingie

How cute is this.  A bag of four at Lee Valley for just under $8.  Works perfectly with an old pop bottle, providing a nice gentle watering for tender newly sprouted plants.

March 11th sowing: Swiss chard, and, round 2 of Brussels, cabbage, kale, & onions

Swiss chard sowed today.  8 joined-pots, 2 seeds each which were pre-soaked for a few hours.


And, round 2 for these:

• Brussels sprouts:  3 pots, 2 seeds each
• Cabbage:  3 pots, 3 seeds each in case the March 4th sowing has germination issues
• Kale:  1 pot, 3 seeds each in case the March 4th sowing has germination issues
• Onions:  1 pot, 4 seeds

More sproutlings have appeared: Update on March 4th sowing and petunias

Spring is springing inside, despite the -20 degrees outside!  Here they are, under my brand new T5 full spectrum lights from Lee Valley.  Raised the lights up for photo-taking purposes -- will keep them nice and low.




Update on March 4th sowing:

• Brussels sprouts:  3 of 3 pots have sprouted, both seeds in each as noted a few days ago.  (wow, 100% germination rate!  A+ for Brussels sprouts!)

• Cabbage:  2 of 4 pots have sprouted, but only 1 seed in each (planted 2 each).  (seen in upper left of above photo)

• Onion:  1 of 1 pot has sprouted, 4 seeds (planted 4 or 6, can't remember).

• Kale:  1 of 1 pot hasn't sprouted yet.

• Petunias, sown on February 18th, are looking good. Thinned them to 1 per pot.

Begonia woe

Oh no!  The pink little nubbin on that one begonia seems to have dried up and shriveled.  Maybe I shouldn't have put it under the light?  Watered it more?  Watered it less? 

No sign of life from the other tubers yet, either. 

Ah well.  We'll see what happens next.

Begonia has be-gotten some growth!

Ooooh, I was beginning to wonder if my tuberous begonias, planted inside almost three weeks ago, were going to wake up.  Lo and behold, one of them shot up a teensy little pink growth nub thing.  So, there is hope yet!

The Brussels sprouts have sprouted!

Well what do you know, overnight all six of my Brussels sprouts seeds suddenly appeared!  They caught me off guard with their pale green/yellowish colour. Hopefully this is normal for this type of plant – never grew these from seed before and don’t remember other seedlings looking like that.  Regardless, very exciting – and, that’s only 6 days from sow to sprout.  Impressive little things!

Seeds started: cabbage, kale, Brussels sprouts, & onions

Started the first batch of cabbage (Golden Acre), kale (Premier Forage), Brussels sprout (Catskill), and onion (Evergreen Bunching) seeds today, all of which are from the Open Seed Vault set -- here's hoping they'll germinate!   Put 2 seeds in each pot, with the hopes that at least one will do well (the other will be removed). Will start a second batch of them all in a week or two, to try to spread out the harvest a little.  (Well, that's assuming they make it to harvest!)

Soil for indoor seed-starting

I should mention, I'm trying a different approach with indoor seed-starting medium this year.  In past years I always used vermiculite, with several seeds all in one margarine tub, as in Mel Bartholomew's Square Foot Gardening book, which was the first how-to gardening book I read.  That was back in the 90s when I had a plot at the Three Sisters Community Garden on University of Ottawa property -- which, sadly, later turned into a shiny new building.

This year, since I was almost out of vermiculite, I figured I'd try something else.  So, this year everything is being started in soil, and, right in their hopefully-one-and-only-indoor-pot, so less transplanting needed.  Each pot will have at least one backup seed in the hopes that at least one will germinate.