More Soil Blocks

No photos today. It seems to be Monday's theme since I had no photos for Harvest Monday either. But how many photos of soil blocks do you want to see? Once they have seedlings, yes, but as they get planted not so much.

Today I planted my peppers in microblocks. I put one seed in each. I was distressed to find that Carmen only had 10 seeds. I wanted to plant 20 seeds and move the best 10 up to the 2" block in a week or two. Chocolate only had 17 seeds. I really hate that for small numbers of seeds. I wish the catalog would tell you how many. The catalog says 160 seeds per gram. And the Carmen pack was 0.1g. So there should be about 16 given that, but nope. The Chocolate is 0.2g so should have 32 right? Nope. I just hate that.

Anyway after sowing I covered with vermiculite and put the blocks on the heat pad. This is the first time that has come out. I only use it for the hot weather plants. The others germinate just as well without it. The following pepper seeds were planted:

• Anahiem x10
• Big Chili x5 (the last that Dan gave me last year)
• Carmen x10
• Cayenne x5
• Chocolate x17
• Early Jalapeno x10
• Feherozon x10
• Krimson Spice x10
• Serrano x10
• Tabasco x10 (from Barbie)
  
• Scotch Bonnet x 5 (from Letti)
  

Then I made my 1 1/2' soil blocks for the rest. The basil was put on the heat mat too, but nothing else.

• Bodegold Chamomile x 16
• Sage x 2
• Oregano x 2
• Goldstrum x 2
• Ground Control Marigold x8
• Dianthus Rainbow Loveliness Mix x 12
• State Fair Zinnia x 6
• Genova Basil x6
• Cosmos x 12 (from Silence)
  
• Borage x6
• Nasturtium x6
  

Again I had seed count issues. I only had six seeds in the zinnia pack. Who just plants 5 zinnias (assuming one won't germinate)? I'm going to have to buy more if I want zinnias on the rock wall garden this year. Then on the other side of the coin, the basil pack had four grams in it. Yes four grams for $1. Well damn that is a lot of basil seed. And the chamomile pack has an amazing amount. The seeds are so tiny that one gram of seed is huge. No one could use that much chamomile seed in a year. Well maybe if you seed outside as you can't tell where you put it or if the wind has blown it away.

My form that tells me when to plant things was also telling me to plant tomatillos again this year. I'm thinking not so much. I loved them last year, but I still have more than 3/4 of my tomatillo salsa left. I don't need to make more this year. I don't use it for much else. Too bad though, I wanted to see if the mutation of my tomatillo would run true. I guess I'll see another year.

I don't have many seed left to plant indoors. I've got eggplant and tomatoes in a week. I ought to have my brassicas planted outside by then so there is more room under the lights. I've got my cucumbers two weeks after that. My melon a week after that. Then my summer lettuces in mid May. I don't have any of the fall veggies on the schedule. I just do them without a schedule usually, but maybe this year since the garden is so large I ought to plan it so I don't forget something.

And as a side note. I'm really messing up the timing of the posts that I've already written for this week. My Tuesday post is about what I did over the weekend and lies about when I plant my onions. My Wednesday post corrects the lie and talks about what I did on Monday morning. This post is also about what I did today - Monday afternoon. I thought about at least keeping the timeline straight and posting this on Thursday. Ack it has been too busy with gardening chores recently. And only more to come.