Got Seeds?

Hubs says I have become a seed hoarder.  Say what?  OK, so I have a shoe box full of seeds; a whole bunch of those are the Fedco order for this fall and next winter/spring.  What say you all?  Too many?  Do I need an intervention?

When I started this system I only had purchased seed.  Now, I'm engaging into a bit of seed swapping - which is really a fun way to expand your horizons.  I need to figure out how to modify my system to support odd size (typically small) trade packs.

Belated better late than not Seedy Saturday .... First up, all seedlings in the garage had to come out of the garage.  Important Note to Future Me!  Don't use alfalfa pellet fertilizer in the garage if you don't want an outbreak of nasty little black gnats.  And, the tray/watering system wasn't working very well.  We had the extremes - too wet or too dry.

So, seedlings moved out - all around the place.  In beds, on top the garden heater, under butterfly bushes.  Luckily, we've had above normal temps this past week, so they are doing fine.  In fact, the tomatoes have all shot up about 6" in one week.

I had finally found seedling trays locally, they fit and line up much nicer and for less than a buck a piece, worth it I think.  I went out and bought one piece of Egg Crate Fluorescent Lamp Grill and cut out pieces to fit snuggly inside the trays.  The young-uns nursery will be elevated on top an inverted tray and the egg crate is further elevated with wine corks on the bottom.  Note!  Corks are also needed in the middle, not just each corner.  Notice a bit of sagging when full?

I used plastic 3oz cups.  I plan to reuse them as much as I can.  Paper wasn't holding up long enough in the seedling trays.  I used a crafting rug needle threaded with jute to poke a hole and thread the water wick through each of the cups.  The wick goes from the top of the cup out the bottom a few inches to dangle under the egg crate tray.  Once planted out; all watering is from the bottom and the plants will wick up the amount of water they need.  No cups sitting in standing water and drowning poor baby plants.

Then lined them all up, filled with seedling mix.  Conventional wisdom would have you pre-dampen the seedling mix before filling the cups.  I have to be difficult.  I have this whole conceptual issue with damp/wet/dirty hands grabbing the crutches to ambulate.  I have an outbreak problem on my hands in the crutch grip area already, so I try to avoid adding to the issue.

So ......  I dampen the hard way.  Water each little cup from the top.  Let it set and wick up from the bottom.  Then spritz the top.

Then, finally .....

Vacation over - time to get back to work.  Plant some seeds.

Tardy Seedy Saturday - 45 seedling cups planted.  And I ran out of seed tray room.  Tis the season.  Start another one.

Started - cucumber, eggplant, squash, melon, hot pepper, turnip, beets, pole beans, leaf celery, summer kale.

The first round of tomato seedlings got planted into the raised bed today - centerish.  On the west side will be the basil - some started seedlings were placed out, as well a generous serving of basil seed was scattered.  Just in time for forecast rain tomorrow!

We won't discuss the other seeds I intended to get out into beds but ran out of that illusive resource .... time.

A few days late, but joining in Dave and company Seed Sowing Saturday.

Now I'm off to catch up with garden news around the webs.  Toodles!