Seed Planting was a Hit!

We had our seed planting session this morning as planned.  It was cold outside (in the 20s), but plenty warm in the sunny greenhouse (about 70).

The turnout was excellent (and enthusiastic, despite the early hour)--we had Alexis, Mike, Sandra, Allison, Tracy, Keff, Nathan, Noah, Suzie, Isobel (Noah's 4th grade classmat), and Fiona (Isobel's little sister).  In addition, two journalism students, Liz from BU and Jenn from Emerson, came to check out the project, but also ended up lending a hand and planting seeds themselves.  All those hands made the work go fast, and within an hour we'd planted and watered 18 flats (about 650 seeds).

On the night before the planting, Tracy and I spent some time going over the seed list and working up a chart that showed exactly how many of each type of seed needed to be planted and how deep.  We then attached a copy of the list to each seed packet, with the relevant information highlighted.  This made the work go much faster.  (Though next time, we need to make sure that all our wording on the sheets is super clear--we confused a few people.)

Here is Alexis planting a flat (I think it was peppers), using the sheets to her left as a guide.

We had a very nice mix of people with some experience and people who were planting seeds for the first time.  Everyone jumped right in and we all had fun--Tracy and I ended up doing more talking and answering questions and organizing than actually planting seeds ourselves.

The next big challenge will be to figure out how to manage the temperature in the greenhouse.  When I went back at 4pm today, the temp was in the 90s (it had gotten over 100), and the trays had mostly dried out already.  I had to water again and open the window and leave the door open.  We'll figure it out, but it's going to take some work (and serious planning) on our part.

Here's Nathan watering seeds with a spray bottle.  The spray bottles work great when starting out, but I discovered this afternoon, when I had to water 18 flats, that they're too slow.  I'm going to need to bring a spray attachment for the hose.

Thanks very much to everyone who helped!  We're going to have quite a bounty when summer gets here.

Here's the flats, all soaking up the sun.  We're using humidity domes to keep the soil moist.  If the greenhouse was in optimal condition, these wouldn't be necessary, but right now we're unable to control the humidity effectively, so the domes will help.

More Sprouts Up

Five (out of ten) of the lemon apple cucumber seeds have sprouted! It helped a lot to get them on the heating pad in the basement. I think the rest will be fully emerged by tomorrow. I'm still waiting on the other seeds that I've planted, but they're all outside, where it's a lot cooler. I might bring them in to warm up their soil too, if I don't see much action tomorrow.

The cool, moist weather rotted out a good number of the Blue Lake Pole bean seeds that we planted a couple weeks ago. Some we tried to start in small six packs (which wasn't enough room, I think), and others in small pots. Very few of the seeds in the six packs germinated (maybe 4 out of 24), and about half of the others have finally emerged. When I dumped out the six packs, there was no sign of the bean seed--they'd just vanished.

No word yet on when the fence replacement will occur. I've got my fingers crossed that it'll happen this week.

More Seeds Planted

Finally I got a chance to plant some more seeds this afternoon. On Tuesday we drove our Zipcar over to Mahoney's Garden center in Brighton and bought a bunch of potting soil and 4" and 6" pots (using up most of the rest of my budget), but I didn't get to plant anything yesterday..

For the new seeds, I mixed together some seed starter mix, potting soil, and a bucket of compost from our outdoor compost bin. (My worm bins don't have a lot of extra castings at the moment.) I planted ten pots with lemon apple cucumbers, nine with scarlet runner pole beans, and nine more pots with Kentucky Wonder pole beans. I'm running out of room on our back porch. With any luck the plants will be up and ready to go as soon as the fence is replaced.

The weather in Boston has been unseasonably cool and wet, for weeks and weeks. This has slowed the germination of all the seeds I've got sitting outdoors. We had sun today, but highs were only in the 60s. I have a whole bunch of Blue Lake Pole Beans in small six-packs that have yet to germinate. I've actually taken them back inside and put them on the heating mat and under the lights to see if I can get them to sprout. We'll see. They might have rotted out in the cool and damp.

Meanwhile, more than a dozen Blue Lake Pole Beans have sprouted. The photo above is of the cucumbers and beans waiting to get in the ground.