Potatoes

My starter potatoes finally arrived, so I'm pre-sprouting them before planting in my trash can. Yes, you read that correctly.

J is the big potato fan in our house, so he got to choose the type. Harder than it sounds - there's so many! Since we're low on space, we can only grow one kind so J decided to automatically eliminate the kinds you can buy for pennies at the grocery store. He wanted something unique and delicious, so he finally settled on the blue kind from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I chose to buy from there because it's fairly local (Maine) and was recommended by another blogger.


My favorite gardening book suggests pre-sprouting by putting each seed potato in its own section of the egg carton, spraying with liquid seaweed and letting them go in a sunny area. So we'll see how it works!
Do you pre-sprout potatoes? What kind(s) are you growing this year?

Seedlings

Now that we're supposedly past the last frost date (though we've had two frost warnings since, but I haven't seen any) I've started hardening off my seedlings. This is an important step, according to all the books and blogs I've read, so that they don't all just die when you put them in the ground - or in my case, in pots.
It's a bit like training for a running race I guess. You start with low mileage - in this case mileage is time outdoors - and work your way up to the full distance.
So far I've put them outside for just a few hours at a time, and only on days that are nice. I don't want them getting rained on quite yet. This past weekend offered two glorious days, so the seedlings took a field trip outside. Friday they sat on the porch, but Sunday they stayed in the greenhouse. It was windy and they were getting blown over. The greenhouse door was open, so they got some breeze, but not the full force.
I'm hoping they'll be hardened off and ready to plant in their final containers outside in about two weeks. However, the weather forecast calls for rain the next 8 days (oh joy) so we'll see how that goes.
Anyone else hardening off seedlings?

Transplant Time

The tomato and pepper seedlings are doing really well. Most have their third set of leaves and need to be transplanted into some larger pots, so that's what I did. I bought some larger pots that can actually be planted right into the final big container later since they break down easily. They're supposed to be less stress on the plant from multiple transplantings, and it saves me the step of having to wash them out later, so I think it's a win-win.

The tomatoes had some pretty serious roots on them, so I think they'll be happy to be in their new homes. I put a bit of potting mix down in the new pots, then some crushed eggshells since tomatoes and peppers both like calcium, and then put the seedlings in. For the tomatoes, that meant burying them all the way up to the first set of leaves. I think it's pretty cool that they'll grow roots off the stem and be stronger.

I've also taken to pointing a fan at the seedlings for 15 minute increments a few times a week to help them toughen up. It will be a few more weeks before they go outside for day trips to start hardening off, but it can't hurt to get a jump-start, right?

How are your seedlings doing?

Seedlings, seedlings everywhere!

There has been a lot of seed sowing action chez moi lately. Almost every weekend I find myself sitting on my dining room floor with the seedling tray on a towel and dirt and seeds and water everywhere. Looking at it, you'd think a toddler had gotten into the gardening supplies. I guess I'm just not a particularly neat gardener.

I know I'm starting my seedlings very early, but Boston is a little warmer than the rest of the state and everything I've read says that the last frost date should be between April 15 and April 25. And the fact that I'm container gardening and have an unheated sunroom at the front of the house facing South also helps. Boston weather means that between Monday and today we've had snow, wind gusts, and 65 degree sunshine-y days. It's a balancing act between running the plants already in their big pots (peas and kale and blueberries) out to the porch to get lots of good sun and bringing them back in quickly before the next freak of weather hits.

First it was the lettuce that I planted. It did really well, except for the few in the center that seemed to wither and die no matter what I did. After about 2 weeks in the seedling try the lettuce got transplanted into some window boxes. I had planned on putting these outside on the porch, but then the snow hit so I thought the indoor windowsill might make a better home for them right now.

After the lettuce came the swiss chard and some herbs. The chard was so neat when it came up! I don't know why, but I wasn't expecting my "Ruby Chard" to be so red so early!

After the chard sprouted came the chamomile. Again, I'm not sure what I was expecting, but those leaves were definitely not it. It's German chamomile, which is supposed to be the best for making tea, so I'm looking forward to that.

There's tons of other things in the seedling tray right now, but I'm way behind on taking photos. Hopefully this weekend I'll have some time to catch up. Right now I have strawberries, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, bell peppers, baby bell peppers, lavender, and basil all sprouting in the seedling tray. And one surprise seed that isn't showing yet, but I'm giving it another week or so.

And what else is coming up this weekend? The Boston Flower and Garden Show!!!! (Yes, I know it's nerdy that I'm excited about this, but I'm really really looking forward to it.) This year's theme is "A Burst of Color: Celebrating the Container Garden" and while they are focusing a lot on flowers, there's TONS of workshops and lectures about vegetable container gardening too. More on that soon!

More Fruit!

On the same theme as yesterday, I decided to try a pineapple from scratch. In this case not a seed, but from a nice organic pineapple from Whole Foods.

This technique is based off a collection of YouTube videos, so I'm not necessarily counting on success here, but it's worth a shot.

Step 1: Take a pineapple and cut the top quarter or so off.













Step 2: Cut all of the fruit meat off of the top. If you leave it on, it will just rot.














Step 3: Cut the top off in little slices until you can see the root buds, or whatever the brown things are.













Step 4: Peel off the bottom few layers of leaves.













Step 5: Let it sit out for a few days so it dries out.
This would have been a boring photo.

Step 6: Set it in a glass of water and let it grow some roots.
This photo hasn't happened yet.
Now I just have to wait and see if I get any root action!

Transplanting Peas

The peas were getting huge. I knew it was time to transplant them to a larger container. We apparently sowed them just a bit too early so they'll be living inside just a little longer. I'll still have to acclimate them to the outdoors eventually, but right now we still can't get our porch door open because of the GIANT snow bank in front of it, so that's not going to be happening soon.

We got the pot - one of the MANY five-gallon black plastic pots from Griffin - and filled it with our fluffed up soil (that we mixed with some of our fertilizer in a big trash can) and wet it down. Then we gently massaged the seedlings out of their tray. I was thrilled to see some extensive root structure, but was a little shocked at how dry the soil was, despite my regular watering.

We used the dowel rods to create a trellis to give the pea shoots some support. I think some plain dowels and a hair band make a pretty awesome trellis, no?
Since we had six plants and 3 dowels, it made sense to put two by each dowel to offer support. Planting, watering and we're all set!

Oh, and I put some of those fertilizer stakes we bought in. The package suggested putting in 6 around each plant. Gosh, can't imagine why they suggest that you use so many all at once. Couldn't be so you run out and need to go buy more of their product, right? Whatever. I put a few in around the dowels and called it a day.

Right now they'll be living in the front room by our big picture window to get the light and hopefully they can move outside in about 2 weeks. We'll see how they grow!

Dangerous...

Ok, I've spent too much time looking at seeds online.

It's so tempting to buy one of everything I can possibly find and try it all. And with the gro-light and heating pad it's even more tempting because my chances of successful seedlings are so much higher.

For example:
How cool are these? They don't even look like plants!
http://shop.ebay.com/andrea*seeds/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p3686

And how about this? Heirloom vegetables from Italy? Delicious!
http://www.growitalian.com/

I think what my living room has been missing all these years is a banana tree.
http://www.raintreenursery.com/catalog/producttype.cfm?producttype=Banana

Someone stop me before seeds take over my house!