Kitchen Garden Seddlings. Progress Notes. 3.30.2021

 Today I'm resting from a medical procedure last week (or maybe two weeks ago now?).  Plus the second COVID shot.  So it's just obsessing over the seedlings, and maybe a trip outside later.

I've been sitting some of the chill tolerant seedlings out on the deck to get time more tolerant to unfiltered sunlight, expose them to more light and wind, and get them ready for permanent outdoors life.  Just the nontropicals that like chill, or can tolerate it.  Currently it's overcast, which is helpful, a little too cool but OK.  Some have been outside for 2 to 4 hours on previous days - potatoes, apples, celery.  Today's goal is maybe 5 or 6 hours.  Depending on how bright it is outside.

Those celery are for Ning.  Homegrown is much stronger flavor than grocery.  I ate the "microgreen" thinnings, nice celery flavor.  The cultivar "Utah" is shorter and greener, while the Chinese type is taller and has white stems.  There will be enough for quite a few meals when it's ready.

Those apple seedlings again.  The top is #3, the last to germinate but quite vigorous now.   Currently still fertigating with 1/4 tsp miracle gro per 2 quarts rainwater.  They need water almost daily.

The second is greener than when it started out.  Stem shows a bit of red but minimal.  The most vigorous of the three.  It also seems to be starting tiny branches at the leaf nodes.

#1 is odd.  It had distorted leaves at first, then I replanted it.  Then it got a longer stretch of thin stem, now a tuft of smaller leaves with narrow internode spacing.   It seems to be growing now.  No idea what the final tree  will be like, or what its fruit, if any will be like.  But it's fun to grow them.

Kitchen Garden Seedling Progress Report. 3.24.2021

 They are mostly doing well.  Lots of growth for the up-potted tomatoes, eggplants, and some of the peppers.  Basil is growing nicely.  I also planted some old basil seeds.  The 5 year old seeds had spotty germination.  A pack not labeled by date, maybe a year or two old from Baker Creek, purple leaf basil, germinated very well.   Chinese and regular chives from home saved seeds doing very well.   Lettuce and celery doing well.  Apple seedlings too.

Slicing and Salad Tomato Seedlings

 

Basil, Lettuce, Some Peppers, Marigolds, Celery, and others.

More Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants, Kale. 

 

Seedling Progress Report. 2.28.2021

 The seeding mat was a bit too warm, with a brief period up to 100F earlier this week.  For most of the seeds, it does not seem to have hurt them and many are germinating earlier than expected.  Not all are growing yet.  So far, most of the tomatoes, the basil, and French marigolds are growing.  The marigolds were first.  The basil and marigolds were seeds I saved from my plants last fall, and the marigolds were from volunteer plant, so now 3rd generation in my garden.

Basil seedlings.  There are a "typical" basil - not one of the fancy big leaf or Thai varieties.  Last fall I cut off the seed heads, and stored them upside down in a brown paper bag in my home office.  Last week, I crushed the dry seed heads in my hands, transferred to a bowl, used my fingers to separate the chaff.  it was very easy to get a large amount of seed, and the process smelled very nice, like basil.

Tomato Seedlings.  Only two have not germinated yet, one of the Moskovic and the home saved volunteer yellow cherry tomato.

Marigold Seedlings - not pictured but similar to the tomato seedlings.  I still have the original plant, blooming in the sunroom.  It's a nice, reddish brown color with orange edges and centers, only about 9 inches tall after a year.

 

Plus, some of the earlier seedlings are doing very well so far.  First, the shallot seedlings are growing nicely.  Germination was poor, but the plants that did grow are doing well.  I also have a shallot bulb that I planted in the garden last fall.  It will be interesting to compare how they do.

 This container has peppers, on left is Banana pepper and with the reddish-leaf apple seedling is Thai pepper.  Those will get separated when I repot the apple plant.

More seedlings under LED lights.

 

 

Celery seedlings.  I planted them too thickly.  The seeds are tiny and I didn't know how good the germination would be.  I thinned them to a few per cell.  Probably thin to one or two per cell, later.

There are also storage onion seedlings and some of the peppers, eggplants, and apples, on the top shelf under the sunroom top window.