Vegetable Garden Journal: 2011-03-26

Submitted by wafy on

Today I started a few things. First I started this journal and a new section to the Housing page. We shall see how well I keep this up :-). I also started some seeds on their way to growing up to be nice productive plants. 

I picked up a Burpee's garden starter tray that holds about 72 plants on two trays. With that I got a number of seeds, some information and some compressed soil pellets. Not my first choice for starting plants but from what I have seen so far it might be promising. Maybe by next year I can get a hold of what my late grand father used for his garden, but until then this will have to do.

I started by doing some research, needed to figure out when the average or estimated last frost date for this year would be for me here. From what I found for my area we are looking at about April 30th, so only about a month away. I also found a pretty handy site that has some recommendations of when to start plants indoors based on the last frost date. That site hopefully doesn't mind here is a link Viviculture.com, it suggested that a few of my plants I am late on and a few that I am a couple weeks too early on. Of my list of vegetables I was able to start most of them.

I am starting these seeds in my workshop in the basement. It might be too cold but I am not sure and not sure if the thermometer is accurate or not. The thermometer I was using says about 50 degrees F. I added a timer attached to my fluorescent light and the tray is on my workbench. (Sorry no wood projects for about another month). Temp might get up to just under 60 F during the day. Next year I hope to move this to a windowless window room in the basement that used to house coal for the house. I need to add some electricity to the room to make it possible and need to look at some lighting for it. 

Here are the soil pellets in the tray:

Starter tray with compressed soil

 

After pouring some water over them they ended up like this, as you can see they go all over. One things to remember is make sure they are flat on the bottom. It doesn't take long for them to expand.:

Decompressed Soil Pellets

 

After flattening out the trays I added the seeds for Green Beans, Yellow Beans, Peas, Roma Tomatoes, Big Beef Tomatoes, Green Peppers, Jalapeno Peppers, Swiss Chard, A Salad mix, Sweet Basil, Spicy Globe Basil, Sage, Marjoram, Oregano, Coriander, Onion Chives, Garlic Chives, Garlic Chives, and Rosemary. Yes a very long list but is a majority of the seeds I want to use this year. I will be adding the squashes, cucumbers, and cantaloupe to these trays in a couple weeks.

A labled view of the pots with the lid off

I added the top to the trays to keep in moisture and keep me from having to water it while we wait for seeds to germinate.

A lable view of the pots with the lid on.

Hopefully in a couple weeks we will see some movement.