Sprout-off Update
Hey, time for a sprout-off update! It’s been five days now since I planted, and I’ve got seedlings on all the veggies and some on the flowers.
Day 5 -- Veggies on the left, sprouts on the right
The veggie seedlings look really healthy and active. I planted them VERY shallowly (by accident) in the jiffy pots, to the point where I actually got to see roots emerge as tiny little fibers from the seed as it started to germinate.
See? Fuzzies!
Overall, with the veggies, things emerged at the same time (about three days after planting) in both the potting mix and the jiffy pots. It’s worth noting that the same wasn’t true for the initial batch of dirt — I was still waiting or tomato sprouts for 10 days! Where the jiffy pots are really far ahead is on the annuals. This is probably because the annual seeds are so tiny that they sat right on the surface. Hopefully I’ll get a good crop of verbena and violas, which I’ve had just no luck at all with.
Flower seedlings are germinating much faster in the jiffy pots.
In other news, I tried transplanting the extremely leggy lettuce and kohlrabi to slightly larger seed containers (actually, re-purposed gatorade bottles) because it didn’t seem to be growing in the seed trays anymore. This may have been an epic fail; I killed over half of the Kohlrabi seedlings in the process of moving them. Delicate things. I also transplanted the cucumbers and green beans into new pots because they’d gotten large enough to be rootbound. This weekend I’ll probably do the same with the first batch of tomato seedlings.
More on my re-purposed containers tomorrow…
Good thing the weekend is here because I too have some extremely leggy lettuce. I am hanging an extra grow light to move them under once I repot them. All my vegetables have sprouted and are on their way to peat pots. I used bottle pots like yours last year and it required a little bit more work at the end. I know, no excuse. I may go back to reusing plastic bottles later; this year however, I’m committed to peat pots.
BTW, I really liked the picture of the raspberry(?) you had on your banner the other day. I can’t wait for my blackberry to come back this year. I planted a raspberry but it did not take so I am trying again this year.
Last, I live in Kansas where they don’t like hippies either and here I am, calling around looking for Ollas for watering. You can hear their eyes rolling on the other end of the line! Happy gardening