Seedlings queue up

Seedlings taking the sun

It’s a jumble of seedlings around the seedling room, inside and out. Actually, it looks like a good part of the entire market garden, neatly in miniature, lined up in trays… Due to a pile of one-thing-waiting-on-another (for example, we have to run electricity for the fan that inflates the two layers of covering), the greenhouse is STILL not refit with its plastic, so the fallback plan is ferrying the seedlings out to tables—4×8 plywood on sawhorses—in the morning, and back in at night (when it’s still as often as not hovering around freezing).

Hardening off! All that daily moving is a bit of a pain, but they have to come in at night. In the hoophouse, without wind, it’d be a lot easier to row cover, and we could apply a minimum of overnight heat with the kerosene heater (or propane space heater). Outside is too much of a risk, particularly for the tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, squash,… Moving takes a total of maybe an hour a day, around 60 trays in all. (And the upside: it’s always cool to see backup plans work! :)

In the pic, the last of the onions from seed, plus cauliflower, parsley, and summer squash just germinating in the distance. Waiting to go…!

6 thoughts on “Seedlings queue up”

  1. WOW! That is a lot of work!!!!! You are a hard worker and will succeed at anything you set out to do!!!! It can not be easy to farm in your climate and I am inspired by your dedication and creativity in making it happen!

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  2. I’m doing the same thing with my seedlings… putting them outside during the day, then back inside in the evening. Hopefully, in another week or so I can leave them outside for good. Cheers!

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  3. Ugh, we had to do that. Took 1/2 hour out, and 1/2 hour back in again at night. I found the seedlings really struggled with the constant moving. But we did not have good trays or an ideal location, so I hope yours works better for you.

    Also, on night where it didn’t get really cold we did not bring them back in. Of course, they grew more slowly due to the cooler roots at night. I’m working on a greenhouse this year and, hopefully, several cold frames/hot boxes so I do not have this extra headache.

    ~Faith

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  4. Taking care of the babies is certainly a lot of work!! Especially in this season where it has stayed soooo cold.  We have seedlings in both our little greenhouse and our sunroom so at least we can open windows.  But I don’t think it is quite the same; we’ve still have trouble planting out things we thought were hardened off!

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  5. I’m just the same – my greenhouse and cold frames are bursting at the seams but the weather is consipring against me panting anything out – too cold and windy! And that means there’s no room to get new seedlings going. What a nuisance!

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