Seed starting & seedling hardening off.
Garden Update 2018 Week 18
The focus of the garden this week has shifted to the next round of plants to go in. Last week I finished getting the early plants and early seeds in. This week it has been tending the seed starts and keeping up with watering my new transplants.
In my house, I have a seed starting area in my furnace room. In the winter it gives ideal seed starting temperatures because of the furnace running to heat the house. Over the past month as we’ve cut down on heat its been getting colder in there. Now, with no heat running, it’s a little too cold. I noticed my peppers were slow to come up so I added some supplemental heat to bring it up to about 24C (75F) and that helped them along.
In the garage, I had all my native plant species. I decided to jump into these a little late in the season. They require a chill period to simulate the prairie winter and that should have started in March. One of the positives that came from the very late start to the gardening season here is that I was still able to provide the period to them. I planted them all in my naked seed starting pods and set them out in my garage. In there, they experienced near-freezing temperatures and had a few weeks where they froze overnight or for a few days at a time.
A couple of weeks ago, I noticed the first ones popping through the surface. I’d had hopes that the south-facing window would be enough but even now it’s still not enough light, so I had to make a temporary setup for them. Now that some of the inside plants are moving outside to get acclimatized, I’ve been able to move them inside under the grow lights.
While moving them all around, I took pictures. The ones on the light wood background are being acclimatized to the outdoors (this is my garage bench). The ones on the dark desk background are under grow lights (I had to put them on my desk to get a proper picture before moving them under the lights).
Here’s an inventory of what I’ve got going.
The left picture shows the artichoke and celeriac. Neither of these did very well last year in a very, very hot year. I had seed leftover (Johnny’s Selected Seeds) so I decided to try them one more year. I was reading that the artichoke needs a chill period around 7C (44F) in order to flower. I don’t remember doing that last year so I’ll try that this year. If anyone has some knowledge on this please leave me a comment.
On the right are the tomatoes. In the top tray the four on the left are Garden Treasure, the five on the right are Garden Gem, and in the bottom tray the six on the left are simply “W”. These are all from Klee Lab in Florida. I first heard about them from my favourite podcast, GardenFork. Check the links out for more information, but in a nutshell, this lab has taken great tasting heirlooms and breed them into new genetics that can handle the diseases & stresses of today.
In the bottom tray on the right is a tomato from Johnny’s called “Juliet”. Last year it did very well and so I’m looking forward to it again this year. If the guys on GardenFork are right, the Klee lab ones will blow it away. I can’t wait to find out!
Now you may be wondering what the six in the middle of the top tray are. These are bugbait. They are exactly what you are thinking. In the process of putting together a talk this past winter I remembered a tomato that was so appealing to Colorado potato beetles that there was interest in it being a trap crop. The details are in my talk but the long story short is that I was able to get some seed and have successfully started plants with it. I’m a little afraid to put it in my garden as I’ve never had Colorado potato beetles and don’t really want to attract them!
Starting at the top left side, is a native plant known locally as northern hedysarum (Hedysarum boreale). Its from the local group that saves and packages native seeds. The next one is Larkspur which I picked up at the same time, except it was acquired at the seed exchange. I talk about the native plants and the seed exchange more in a previous update.
At the bottom of the left picture are the chamomile (Johnny’s) and snapdragons (given to me by a neighbour). I’m planning to put the chamomile between the onions and wherever I can stick it. It’s a tough plant that does well with little nitrogen and water. I hope to spread them out more this year so they don’t get tangled up and I can harvest them easier.
The snapdragons will go in a shaded bed. My neighbour gave them to me because I’d been talking about an area in my yard that gets nearly no sun. He showed me his volunteer snapdragons in between houses that seem to thrive. When they matured we harvested some seed. It’ll be great if they work out because it’ll give some colour to an area that is usually empty in the summer (right now its full of crocuses & daffodils) and he’ll be able to see them from his house.
Moving on the to top of the picture on the right are stevia and basil from Johnny’s and marigolds from the seed exchange. I don’t think the marigold seed was viable as nothing has come. The stevia and basil will be some of the last to go out as they don’t like cold at all. The marigolds could have been out anytime but it doesn’t look like I’m getting anything from them.
At the bottom of the picture are peppers on the left (Krimzon Lee) and right (Hungarian hot wax) and bee balm in the middle (also known as wild bergamot or Monarda). All the seeds are from Johnny’s. I’m not sure what happened with the bee balm as I usually have excellent results from anything from Johnny’s. The peppers were all started with a single seed and every single one came up.
I’ll end with the rest of the native plants. If you have any advice on how to grow them please leave some comments. My plan is to try them in many areas of the yard and see which ones work best. Trial and error at its best.
Until next week,
Scott.
