More Seed Starting. Tomatoes and Others. 2.25.22

 These are other seeds I started yesterday.  I waited on sauce tomatoes because I don't see much reason to start them as early, while everyone should want the earliest slicing tomatoes :-).

There were some old "Ranger" sauce tomato seeds.  It's an excellent variety that I grew 3 or 4 years ago, productive, tasty, big, disease free.  However the seed and shipping were too expensive so I changed to Roma III which are also excellent but bot quite as big.  I'm growing out the last of the Ranger seeds so they are not wasted.  I also discovered I have a pack of "Supremo" so I will test that with one plant.  The bulk of the sauce tomatoes will be Roma III, very productive, good, meaty, good size, disease free sauce tomatoes.  I'll grow a few Roma VF that I saved seeds for last year, to see how they do in identical conditions as the others.  Last year's Roma VF were off the irrigation grid and shaded by taller tomatoes, so didn't get a good test.

There are also various other plant varieties in this round of seed starting.  I'm curious about how the Salpiglossis turn out.  Those seeds are like dust.  There are conflicting reports on whether they require light.

The condiment bottle is a great way to water seeds.  I think it works better than a sprayer.

Planting Stratified Wild Rose and Pyrocanthus Seeds. 3.25.22

These are rose seeds I collected by the roadside in December.  I cleaned the rose hips, washed the seeds, placed in wet newspaper and placed that into a zipper plastic bag, then refrigerated until now.  Today, I planted them 1/4 inch deep in seed starting medium, and put them on a warming mat.

The seeds have white tips.  I wondered if that is the start of a root emerging, but I think the seed coats just have a white tip.

I did the same with Pyrocanthus seeds that I collected this winter and treated the same way, except on wet paper towel.

I planted the Pyrocanthus seeds 1/4 inch deep in seed starting medium, and placed them on the seed warming mat, too.

I read that newspaper is better for stratifying seeds because it's less likely to become moldy, compared to paper towel.  Here they seem about the same.

The Mystery of Bad Potting Soil. 3.25.22

 These are the peppers that I up-potted in that Miracle-Gro potting soil.  They are the third or fourth group of seedling that I planted in that soil.

Everything that I subsequently planted different brand (I forget the brand) of potting soil is looking quite good.  It's definitely the pitting soil.  I won't claim that the brand is bad, but this batch is definitely toxic for some reason.

I might try re-potting the survivors in a different soil and see if they recover.

Meanwhile, the Jalapeños and Serranos that I had mistreated with Neem oil previously, seem to be sending out new growth.

Some roots are emerging from the bottom holes.  That's also an encouraging sign.

Planting Sweetpea Seedlings. 3.25.22

 These are the sweetpea seedlings I planted yesterday.  They were sort of unintended.  I hadn't seen the ones that I planted directly emerge, so I started these just in case.  Since then, the others did emerge.  I planted these against some deer fencing in a location where they should get Western sunshine, although there will be some shade.  I can compare how they do, with others that will not be shaded.

I had read that they don't like being started in containers because the tap root might break in transplanting. So I planted these before there was much tap root at all.

Seedling Notes. 3.25.22

 This morning I puttered with seedlings.

This tomato was too tall for it's cell pack, somI up-potted it into a tall 4" pot.  This one is "Ukranian Purple".  I think that's the same as "Russian Purple", interchange names, but from the history I read "Ukrainian Purple" seems more accurate.

The other tomato seedlings are looking good.  I may have started them a little too early but, no problem.

It's interesting that Reisentraube is smaller than the others.  I thought it would be a vigorous grower, like Sungold.  As it is, it's more compact than the dwarf types.  In the front of the bottom pack is a pack of thyme seedlings.  They are growing faster than the ones I set outside a couple of weeks ago, which proves I jumped the gun on that one.