The little gamble on propagating rosemary from frail cuttings paid off at 20%. Out of about 40 starts, eight took root, this without any sort of rooting compound. I put them in 3″ peat pots yesterday. They’re headed for the summer herb garden.
Seed & Seedlings
True leaves
True leaves are starting to appear in the first trays of eggplant and peppers (that’s Dusky, and Vittoria behind, both eggplant). It’s around 20 days from seeding. Rapid growth is on the way!
Vigorous Vittoria
The tray of Vittoria eggplant germinated quickly and thoroughly, with rows of seedlings all straight up and down in just a few days. This year (my fifth) is the first time I’ve deliberately gone through the seed inventory to use up anything that’s getting old, and the difference in germination rate and especially seed vigor between older and newer seed is clear. I noticed this from year two, but now, with several crops, varieties and ages all going at once, it drives the point home. There’s no more effective way to learn than seeing for yourself! I’ll be that much more attentive to seed storage and buying quantities from here on in. Waiting several extra days for a batch to fully germinate wastes lots of time and rack space, although it all evens up when regular growth (photosynthesis!) kicks in. (This is the first day of spring!)
Plug sheet action
Plastic cling wrap is everywhere. I tried it out last year as a replacement for clear tray covers and it seems to work fine. The method so far: fill the plug sheets with seedling mix, place tray in water so mix is soaked from the bottom up, drop in 2-3 seeds per cell, cover lightly with more mix, soak surface with spray, apply plastic wrap (it sticks nicely to the wet edges of the plug sheet), fill out label marker with variety/date and plunge through plastic (those labels are all that stand between you and variety chaos!), then it’s off to the racks. Now, the trays don’t have to be watered for a week, the mix retains more heat, and you can check moisture by looking at the condensation on the plastic. At first, I wondered about adequate air circulation and whether the fairly closed conditions would encourage algae, but the seedlings emerge on time with no unusual algae problems. As soon as the first couple of seedlings appear, it’s off with the plastic. I re-use the plastic as well, over the 4-5 weeks of seed starting, and the bit of waste in the end, well, I think it’s moderation in everything that counts. (In the top right of the pic, the Vittoria eggplant is tenting its cover, having pushed up vigorously in just six or seven hours overnight. It’s a feisty one!)
Grow racks at night
Plant racks, light stands…I usually call ’em grow racks. They’re filling up now.
Pushed to capacity, the three racks can hold a total of 36 trays, 12 each, or four trays per shelf. So, depending on the size of the plug sheet—I use 38s, 72s, 128s, 200s—I can start between 1,368 and 7,200 seedlings.
Sounds super-efficient. HOWEVER, it comes down to the light. With four trays per double fluorescent fixture, the light is pretty stretched, and a lot of rotating is in order.
Also, most of the fixtures are the old standard T-12 type, where the light is stronger towards the middle of the tube. You can clearly see the difference in growth if you leave trays in the same position for a few days. The newer T-8 type lights more evenly from end to end and uses less power, but I don’t feel like replacing all the fixtures (a couple in there are already T-8).
It’s an ongoing experiment to see which size plug sheet to best start in for each crop, given the light situation. That in turn determines if or how often I need to pot up to larger quarters before it’s time to transplant into the field.
All in all, I’ll get around 2,500 seedlings off the racks this year.
Eggplant emerges
A tray of Fairy Tale eggplant suddenly begins to break out after six days under plastic wrap. In just a week or two, I won’t have time for this sort of…intense observation, watching for the very first signs of emerging seedlings. In a month, there will be a couple of thousand to keep track of. The micro-view is fun for now!
Grow racks in action
The grow racks are starting to fill up. First trays of eggplant and peppers, seeded yesterday, sit up top where it’s warmest. The lights run 14-hours a day, on a timer, with an extra hour or so of early morning ambient sunlight from windows on three sides of the room.