Tag: germination

Debatably late

12 Jun 202611 Jun 2026 by Mike (tfb)

Much more me than the carrots in thinking they were taking so long, they weren’t going to arrive at all. The variety is Miami, a reliable hybrid, and the seed is from last year. To me, that’s fresh and ready to go. Given the recent soil-warming heat, uninterrupted moisture from watering and rain, and nice thick black landscape fabric cover to keep the heat and moisture in, I figured when I checked on day 7, then 8, they should be up and yelling for the sun. But there was nothing. I took off the cover, and didn’t let the bed dry out, but I was about to reseed. Then one more day went by, and there were a few tiny carrot seedlings starting to arch out of the soil. Still skeptical, I ignored it for another day, then checked this evening and…decent germination—actually, they’re really popping!

It’s not out of the ordinary, this production thinking that gets out of sync with reality. Patience is often rewarded. In this case, it’s not as dense germination as an Earthway seeder overseed, but it’ll do for a first round, and that’s over a week not wasted in re-starting the season’s first carrots! :)

Potato spotting

6 Jun 20244 Jun 2024 by Mike (tfb)

When you spend a lot of time scanning the ground for the very first sign of germination, you get pretty good at spotting new seedlings as they emerge. This new potato plant is easy, it’s quite large, with a rosette of crinkly, distinctively dark green leaves. Carrots and green onions are a whole lot tinier. Beets, spinach, and brassicas can at first look pretty much like the weeds that pop up around them, they blend in. Still, no matter the crop, after a while, you develop a seedling recognition system that automatically zeroes in on even a single new arrival, just like that. It’s always a pleasure to see that seeds are still getting along with the weather and doing their thing!

Spinach in the field

17 May 202415 May 2024 by Mike (tfb)

Yay, spinach! Seeing direct seeded crops germinate is one of the most satisfying things in the field. Here, it’s spinach, Reflect variety, seeded a few days ago, coming up nicely. In general, seeds do germinate, that’s a good starting point. But there are lots of variables, and the unpredictable weather extremes that have become the new normal don’t help. Is the seed new this year, or has it been around for a year or more? What conditions does the particular veg like: ground always wet until germination, soil temperature not too low or too high, seed not too deep or too shallow, and so on. It sounds more complicated than it is, only because, as a tiny farmer, you have little control over any of it. You lay seed down at a reasonable depth, water it in, watch, hope for the best, and prepare to reseed if things don’t go your way!

Looking tiny by comparison, you can also see redroot pigweed seedlings popping up. They’re easy to handle if weeded early. Otherwise, a no-joke garden invader!

First tomatoes

23 Mar 202421 Mar 2024 by Mike (tfb)

The generally reliable Big Beef variety, five days old. Always the little miracle to see dry specks of seed germinate with a little warmth and moisture, and to imagine them in four or five months, sprawled around the field (or maybe, supported), producing a steady supply of tasty, hybrid-perfect beefsteak tomatoes!

Seeds under plastic

2 May 202217 Apr 2022 by Mike (tfb)

Plastic that looks like plastic adds its own surreal touch to any scene. I use sheets of food wrap to cover plugsheets trays until the seedlings push up above the surface. The plastic holds in heat and keeps the seedling mix moist, both of which the seeds definitely like. As soon as the seedlings emerge, off comes the plastic. Time to let the air flow. I reuse new sheets of wrap for a whole season. With use, they lose their clinginess and are that much easier to handle. The little things add up!

Bare root seed starting

13 Nov 202311 Apr 2012 by Mike (tfb)

It doesn’t get simpler than this for seed starting in controlled conditions: the bare root approach. Spread seeds on paper towel, place another paper towel on top, mist with a spray bottle, roll up (don’t forget to mark the rolls if you are doing more than one), and place in a ziploc-type sealable plastic bag. Then, put the bag in a warm spot, light not required. Be sure to check on the seeds daily, as they can use the oxygen! Within a few days, you will see the little white radicle tip emerge, and from there it is root growth in action. When to take them out is open to experimention: all the veggie seeds I’ve come across are pretty tough and wanting to grow, given the minimum reasonable conditions, so you can plant right at germination, or a couple days down the line with more root. As always, there are lots of variables to consider, play around with, and so forth, but you should be generally fine no matter what. Since I usually only do this for germination tests, I don’t actually plant them (cruel, huh?!). Other materials than paper towels (they shred easily when wet, an advantage when separating if roots start growing into them) and plastic bags could be used—kinda interesting, a while back I checked the book and called my certification agency to see whether there were organic standards for the paper towels used with this method, since they are in such intimate contact with the seeds at such an early stage and who knows what’s in the paper, but no…this is not covered, anything goes, if you’re certified, this would be, well, certified organic. Anyhow, this year, these seeds are for production: here, it’s sweet peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes! We’ll see how it goes!

NOTE: Yeah, I am still messing around with my phone camera and the sometimes cheesy photo filter effects in Instagram for Android…

Editing onions, counting peppers

13 Nov 202331 Mar 2010 by Mike (tfb)

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? That’s how it seems, in a soothingly familiar way, as seed starting 2010 really gets in gear at this new farm location. A little over two weeks since we set up the seedling room, and the fairly intricate task of managing dozens of crops and varieties and thousands of seedlings is on!

It can be a little complicated, keeping track of all the details, but it’s also…simple. Kendall, trying her hand at tiny farming-style veggie production for the first time, shows no fear with the sharp, little snips, as she learns about thinning onions (above). We’re multiplanting this set of onions, aiming for four per plug sheet cell. Since I used seed from last year—a common rule is that you should get allium (onion family) seed fresh each year to ensure good germination, but why waste?!—we went a little generous in the seeding. Germination was great, and now we need to remove the extras.

Next, Kendall’s on to another kinda critical seed-starting task: taking inventory of what exactly we’ve got going. That means a lot of counting and note-taking, and making sure the markers in the trays don’t get pulled out. Below, she tallies some of the 20 or so varieties of sweet and hot peppers that’re on for this season. For the new girl, it’s business as usual!