Veg Showcase Starter Seedling Progress

[DThille]

I'm chomping at the bit to make progress...this weekend is our average last spring frost date, but I was seeing overnight lows around freezing in the forecast so I have to wait for some things. I did plant out a few brassicas in the raised bed a couple days ago...the rest are now starting to harden off to go out to the country.

I potted up these peppers last night from the soil cubes...this tray has five of the seven varieties I've started this year. The further tray has a variety of herbs and veggies.

Primarily herbs in the close tray and cucurbits in the farther.

Tomatoes and peppers...I think the tall tomatoes in the far tray (Silvery Fir Tree) are growing about 1 cm a day...I'm running out of easy way to raise the light...I'll have to do something about that situation this weekend.

Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, broccoli, and red cabbage.

All the vegetables are heirloom varieties I ordered this winter. Some of the herbs came from there as well, but some came from another local source. If I could plant more out, it would help make space for potting up some of the others, especially since I'll need to do something with the cucurbits soon.

I definitely need to step back and consider the potential bounty / end result at times to justify the work and figuring out means to get around the space constraints.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Awesome! I'm excited for you

In the second picture some plants look rather leggy, perhaps the grow light is/was too far away?

You'll get there - every step is a step closer to your goal. The early years are usually "the hardest" as they require the most work and you are usually the least experienced in. I'm slowly getting the hang of it too and I can enjoy my garden, rather than fight it.

Happy gardening!

 

[DThille]

Agreed on the legginess. I wound up using peat pellets for seeding these, when these are the largest seeds I had to sow, so it wasn’t a good match from the get go. I’d run out of seed starting mix, so figured I may as well use these as they were at hand. Those were seeded May 1 with visible germination on the 3rd. That’s the grow light I like the least as it rests on the humidity dome rather than having its own stand. In the next few days I’ll be working on potting them up. That said, I’m running thin on appropriate pots as well. At least cucurbits can be planted up to the cotyledons so that should help out a bit.

Hopefully on Monday I’ll be able to get out to the country and get a bunch of work done, which would allow me to plant out the brassicas before it turns into too much more of a gong show in the house.

This is a lot more indoor starting than I’ve done before…in recent years we’ve tended to just purchase the starts. This is very different from how my parents would garden. Dad would plant root crops as staples (primarily potatoes and carrots). Mom would look after the more salad type stuff, tomatoes, cucumbers…we never grew much for herbs (other than dill for pickling) nor brassicas (beyond a few cabbages perhaps). There was often some pickling that went on. Of course, that was the 1970s / 80s. A lot has changed, including my tastes.

The beautiful thing is that, if some of this fails early in the season, we can still procure stuff from the garden centres, although one loses variety that way.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Legginess happens, especially when you are still learning how and what. I've had most of my plants survive just fine when leggy and I didn't have replacements for them; I would repot them very deep into the soil. This might change per specie that you are growing though; for me they were usually tomatoes or basil.
You can always make-do some pots by cutting open milk containers and such! I've actually started a lot of plants in bottles and what not - they work just fine!

I enjoy doing both! But only by buying seeds I seem to get the variety that I like. I enjoy growing things that just never look right in the stores. Green beens have been slimy as of late so I'm contemplating going out next week and buying some seed to grow myself! I just have to figure out a trellis somehow...

Garden dynamics have always seemed very interesting to me. My father would grow rhubarb, pears and strawberries. My mother would tend to flowers instead. I'm trying to do both as I want flowers for, well, they make me happy (and for the bees), but I also want to grow veggies as they are just 10 times tastier grown yourself! Maybe it's all in my head - maybe it's true. Who know

I've been thinking about pickling but then again I have never appreciated eating anything that was pickled (or kept in salt for that matter). In saying that the only things I had pickled that I remember were (green) beans, garlic and pickles.

 

[DThille]

Graduation day? Covered front porch facing southeasterly so they don't get much direct sun but it's fairly bright. I'll likely remove the plastic in a couple days to get them some wind. There's still a few that will be ten days or so before planting that need to be potted up...I just need to get to them.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Look at that! They look absolutely amazing, and very healthy! I love what you're doing

 

[DThille]

They could be healthier, but we’ll manage.

One of my plans is to plant a Jerusalem salad (sometimes known as Israel salad) - tomato, cucumber, and mint. A squeeze of lemon or lime is often used, but we can only grow those in pots…the key lime is flowering and will get adjusted to outside soon, but I don’t know if there will be any production at the appropriate time.

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Why can you only grow lemons/limes in pots? Is it because of the frost? We used to thickly mulch our trees to keep the roots from freezing over and once established we didn't do anything anymore really. It just lived on it's own. Or am I missing out on some other cue?

 

[DThille]

Yes…we are in zone 2-3 here and generally see some nights well below -30 C. I haven’t heard of any citrus growing outdoors in Canada, even in the warmest parts (southern Ontario, southern BC, Vancouver Island)…that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. They either aren’t cold-tolerant enough or have too long of a season (need more growing days than we have.

 

[t4ms]

Why can you only grow lemons/limes in pots? Is it because of the frost? We used to thickly mulch our trees to keep the roots from freezing over and once established we didn't do anything anymore really. It just lived on it's own. Or am I missing out on some other cue?

Yes…we are in zone 2-3 here and generally see some nights well below -30 C. I haven’t heard of any citrus growing outdoors in Canada, even in the warmest parts (southern Ontario, southern BC, Vancouver Island)…that doesn’t mean there aren’t any. They either aren’t cold-tolerant enough or have too long of a season (need more growing days than we have.

Even in colder regions of Oz, @Mandy Onderwater, citrus really suffers. I wanted a lemon tree in New England but I was advised that I could only manage one in a pot if I could move it to a very sheltered aspect (under an eave) during winter. I didn't bother.

Getting some citrus is now high on the agenda since moving to a temperate region.

Loving your posts, @DThille. I don't always remember to 'like' them but keep them coming

 

[Mandy Onderwater]

Fail enogh. Where I come from temperatures range between -10 and 35 in "extreme" cases. Not the -30's you guys talk about, haha.