Seedlings

Some of the seedlings are really getting big. The onions (Copra, Varsity, Redwing, and Alicia Craig) above were started on January 21st. So they are two months old. If the weather was like normal they would be getting planted right now. As it is they are getting hardened off on the back steps. I'll probably leave them there and just bring them in during the night. When they are under the lights upstairs I can only put the lights on for 12 hours a day. These are long day onions and I don't want them to start bulbing up. Usually I have my lights on about 15 hours a day, but I can't do that with onions. Sometimes I think I need one small separate spot for onions so I can have the correct length of light for all my plants.

One week ago

Today

I have other onions growing under the lights, but they are bunching onions, planted March 10th. Also in this flat are my other slow growers like leeks, sweet alyssum, parsley, and celery. I like to plant all the slow growers in one flat so they don't overwhelm one another. It doesn't always happen that way, but I try. My alpine strawberries that have been in the freezer for two weeks will join them today. Their cold treatment is over and I hope they all germinate.

The lettuce has grown large as you can see. It was planted three weeks ago and is ready to go out if only the weather would cooperate. Not all the lettuce germinated. Some of the seed came from last years trials and I didn't have enough space to trial them all. Two packets never germinated. So I resowed. Now on the other side of this flat it is even more thick and tangled with Asian greens. And the resown lettuce was in the middle. That just wouldn't do as they were getting shaded from both sides. I moved the lettuce down to the way end of the flat and gave space between the brassicas and the newly planted lettuce. They are happier that way.

This is my most troublesome flat. It contains the chard. Chard never grows well under lights. It always seems unhappy. But it never grows well for me direct seeded either. So I grow really floppy chard for a few weeks until I can plant it out. The rest of the brassicas are growing pretty well. These were all planted on March 18th as was the flat below.

Here I'm trying to grow cumin. It is the large section of wispy small plants to the middle left. Last year I tried too, but the plants died from lack of water. It is hard to keep seedlings watered when it isn't at your own house (yet). After transferring houses and keeping remote gardens, I have so much respect for those that keep up Community gardens. Gardening out the back door is so easy. You can keep up with it and see how the plants grow. You can water seedlings every day when the heat is in the 90s. Also in this flat are some flowers and yet more brassicas.

And last but not least of my seedlings are my wintersown seedlings. I have six packs of these. The lettuce are the only ones that have germinated so far. I was so worried that the alpine strawberries wouldn't get enough cold before the weather turned warm. Ha ha. I guess mother nature wants my wintersown strawberries to start well. Yes I have two different batches of strawberries. The ones I'm trying to wintersow and the ones that went under the lights today. I figured if one way doesn't work for them the other will.