Peppers are in, cucumbers planted. My compost is black and beautiful and I'm glad to put some of it to use. Spoiler Bought more tomato seeds because apparently now I have room for 30-40 vines. Also I killed half my tomato seedlings due to too much fertilizer so I'll need more plants anyway. Spoiler Also started on a little more devil's vine removal. I removed 3 huge ones last season and treated the rest with Roundup. They are waxy and the roundup, even with soap, doesn't stick very well. About 10 are coming up from their starchy roots and I'll have to dig them all up if I want them gone for good. Ah well, it's a work in progress. Spoiler
I’m still here waiting for the snow to melt. Have planted some more seedlings in my indoor gardening station. Made some changes to the setup, by doubling up the lighting, addng a fan, and putting in a heat plate. The heat plate is a home made thing... just got a long piece of 1/2” steel plate (6”x30”), attached 2 aquarium heating pads under it, and it’s now a pretty effective heat sink/radiator. It’s just sitting under the bottom screen under all the seedlings. Working well. The thing I’m trying to figure out now is how to tell the difference between a long germination period and “it dead”.
@Nettdata what kind of seeds did you plant? Cool idea on the heat plate. You've given me the idea to try to rig one next winter so I don't have to insulate my whole shed to keep stuff alive out there for a few weeks. I was looking at ones online but they were like $30 for a smallish rectangular one and I almost hit the "buy" button before I thought to myself, you friggin dummy.... Is there a specific thing you are trying to tell about for germination?
My thyme is starting to show green on the surface... super tiny leaves... but my cilantro and broadloom tomatoes are still showing no signs. I'm sure it's just taking more time than I expect, as the cilantro is the same stuff I planted before and is now going strong. I can't remember if I planted them last week or the week before... regardless, they should be showing in about 2 weeks, so I'll just give it another week to see what's going on. One thing that I found works really well for the heater is to just hit the one end of it with a reptile heat lamp... it gets pretty warm and then conducts the heat down the length of the steel.
The cilantro was the last of my herbs to pop, took a solid 7 or 8 days to start. I think the tougher seed coating needs time to work open. That's a good idea about the reptile lamp. That's what I originally used in the coldframe and it really kept it toasty. I was actually thinking about zig zagging white Christmas lights (I have a TON of lights) on the underside of the shelving in the shed to keep the bottoms uniformly warm and then rigging up a red heat lamp and a grow lamp on each shelf for ambient temperature and light. I need to make sure I'm not creating a firehazard though. The only expense for me would be the additional grow lamp, then.
When I put in the reptile lamp initially I fried a few flats of seeds... it was too hot. I then used it as indirect heat, having it heat up a pan of water in the corner. This is the next iteration of that... using the metal plate instead of the pan of water. Working well so far.
My cucumber plants are just hanging out inside for another month or so. Yes...I will replant into any container that I have handy. I just burn in drain holes with the soldering iron.
Here you can see a close up of the heating plate. I just degreased it with some acetone, hit it with a few coats of metal paint, and it's good to go and shouldn't rust: The one heating pad to the right is slightly bigger than the plate so overlaps a bit. Here's the total setup so far... catnip is growing like crazy... been harvesting it almost daily for 3 cats (mine and my sister's) and it's just coming in bigger and faster.
And I am getting 8-12 inches of snow on Wednesday. Can't wait till I can start the garden. The only thing I have are my dormant pepper plants in the basement. All they are are the branches with no leaves just give them a little water every few days. They look dead but should sprout back to life when I bring them outside.
I have prepped about 30% of my total garden, I will be planting snap peas and onions later today. Our overnights are still in the 30s, but we are touching 70 some afternoons. It's definitely time for me to be working out there. I am jealous of your peppers Zyron, my first flat of red bells and jalapeños did not sprout at all. Going to try some new seed.
Shucks, I am getting started later than I wanted on the tomatoes because I killed some and have space for many more than I originally thought. Now I am already imagining a sunscreen so I produce into August despite the heat....hmmm...
I took home an orange tree last year... I don't know how long I'll be able to keep it in the house but it's all budded up and starting to bloom. Which is cool and smells awesome in the dining room.
That is very cool. I remember watching some Royal Gardens show where it gave a tour of the Citrus Garden at the royal residence (England), and it had probably 50 orange trees in it... they said the smell was amazing.
It's amazing what a difference 2 days can make. Just when I was about to give up on a couple of seed trays, figuring the seeds were fucked, they sprouted a ton of fast-growing greenery. Never done this before, and I have to say, it's kind of addicting and fun.
I am thinking that this summer or fall, when I have some time on my hands, I need to prioritize this project and get the shed set up for some seedlings. We had our last little cold spell where it went down to the upper 30s for about 3 consecutive nights and I had to cover up or bring in the plants. My husband LOVES it when he can't get to the freezer... Spoiler That isn't even half of it. The freezer is the last resort and I ran out of places. Hopefully this is the last time I have to store them there. So, my cucumbers all came up. And they are now all eaten up. I thought it was the usual caterpillars that got lucky when my spray solution washed off but I went out early this morning after a rain and found the true culprit: slugs. Fuckin' slugs. I am going to try the cornmeal in a jar trick while I start my (hopefully) last batch of cucumbers inside under the light. I started way too many melons because I got excited one night about the prospect of garden fresh melons. I have a very interesting project in mind, once some supplies come in from Amazon I will have some cool shit happening over here! El hubs has been working some midnight shifts. I go down some weird rabbit holes when I have hours to myself, usually homesteading or gardening related. I found videos last night about urban market farming. I don't want to take my stuff to market but I would love to have chickens along with my garden since they go hand in hand and help each other. I love some of this guy's ideas on how to make things less labor intensive while also more natural:
Unless you just wanna raise chickens for meat and eggs, don't do chickens. For the love of god, don't let them around plants or anything that you want to grow again. Get ducks instead. Chicken poop is toxic to the soil and will prevent things from growing in it. Ever heard of "chicken tractors"? That's so they can move the coop around, so in theory grass will eventually grow back in that area while they destroy another portion of land. Duck poop, meanwhile, is fertilizer. And ducks eat grubs growing on and around the plants, whereas chickens scratch at the ground and put anything in their mouth that they think might resemble food just to test it out. In fact, ducks are so effective at pest control that they're starting to use them instead of fertilizer for pest control in vinyards: I got my Indian Runner ducks from here. That's the breed they use in the vinyards. The runners are so light they don't trample the crops (i.e. my fucking yard) and they eat so many bugs I could go outside naked and sweating in the Texas summer and not be attacked by our humming bird-sized mosquitos. Never mind that their eggs are a thousand percent more tasty and healthier. For the love of god don't get fucking chickens. You'll be using a gunpowder eraser on your mistake in no time. Though if you want fresh chicken, that is the way to go.
Progress. The Brandywine tomatoes I thought were DOA have decided to show themselves over the past couple of days. The cilantro is coming in much better the second time... the fan is really doing a great job of toughening up the stalks, so everything is standing up nice and tall without flopping over. Just planted a few more herbs today; basil and oregano. Also planted a bunch of different peppers. As always, the catnip is going nuts despite being trimmed daily.
In other news, I've decided to make some raised wicking beds this spring. Figured it would make for easier watering. Should be interesting. Just ordered the pond liner and will be picking up some of the other supplies tomorrow at the Home Despot.
I didn't know all that about ducks. Before I go missing down that rabbit hole, just a couple questions for you based on what I just watched and a wikipedia article. Do you have to go foraging for the eggs? Do you have to have a pond for them? Have you noticed issues with disease? And do they have similar requirements for their coop when compared to chickens or do their have different, specific requirements?
We had some domesticaed Mallards when I was a kid. They were nicer than the chickens. Ummm, we had no pond, no issues with disease. Nice big eggs. Just like with chickens, though, everything wanted to eat those ducks.