Unfit mother and day two

The little seedlings have been having a hard time of it. You'd think that a big sign by the coffeepot would be enough to remind me when to turn on the grow lights and turn them off again, but no. They endured a few 24-hour days and 24-hour nights. Towards the end, their water dried up. But the will to live is strong, thank goodness.

Here they are awaiting transplanting. This group has cleome, tithonia, nicotiana, cardinal climber and calendula.

 

The cardinal climber and tithonia are obviously strong growers. Nicotiana seed is infinitesimal and it results in tiny little plants all entwined. They're survivors as volunteers, but we'll see how they do with some nurturing. Only three calendulas grew at all. The cleomes, another said to self-sow vigorously, look a little wee.

 

Here is the first set to be transplanted, complete with the cullings. Somehow that never gets easier.

 

Now comes the stage of putting them outside, then taking them in, then putting them out again... considering that I'll be gone the next couple days, they may just need to be strong and live despite the conditions.

A shortened day, but also pruned dead rhododendron stalks and a volunteer shrub by the cedar, and worked on my Colesville list.

Notes to self: get a timer next year, concentrate on the easy ones to grow, and transplant them at least a week earlier.

Tomorrow: the cleomes, which have been transplanted once, get to go outside for a stroll.

They grow up so fast

The saga of the seedlings continues. I planted them with some trepidation and placed them on the seed-starting table. This table has two slots for the trays on which the seed trays live. I had the trays on the lower slot, so of course the fluorescent light was too high above the seedlings. But I reasoned that I had about a week before buying additional chain became necessary.

Not so - some of the seedlings emerged immediately and became leggy almost overnight. So yesterday, I was measuring the amount of chain needed when light dawned. Why not just move the trays to the higher slot, where they would be close enough to the light? You see why my career choice has never included anything the slightest bit mechanical.

Easy enough, but when I tried to hook the light to a higher link on the chain, there came a pop! and a burst of light, and the light fixture went dead. Could it be the ballast? After two new bulbs, these meant especially for gardening, and then, when they still didn't work, a new light fixture, the seedlings should at last be a bit happier.

Moral of the story: my lack of faith in my own mechanical abilities (or even common sense, I'm afraid) is fully justified.

 

Here are the seedlings just emerging...

 and here they are reaching up to the light. The fact that my hand-scribbled lists of which seeds were planted in which tray, and in which order, have inevitably gotten mixed up in the course of all of this just means more excitement later, when I try to figure out what the heck I have actually been growing.

Seedlings

 

Unlovely, but full of hope: the two seed-starting trays. Contents include cleome, tithonia, two kinds of cosmos, bronze fennel, and cardinal climber vine. Need to get additional chains to bring the lights down close to the seedlings, but I have a few days to get that together.

I'm probably a bit late with this, since the extension agent said in the paper that our average last frost is April 20-30, not May 10th as I had remembered. (And fyi, the first frost is October 19-29 by his reckoning).

For some reason this process makes me very nervous - I guess because the chance of killing off the babies is so high - but onward!

The new madness

This year, for the first time in many years, I decided to start some things from seed. A long time ago, I bought a seed-starting setup from Genine Lentine (was that her name?) when she had the garden shop downtown. It's in the basement, where it has something of the look of an unused piece of exercise equipment.

 

The seed-starting system should still work, if I can figure it out again. I should be home most of the next few months, so I can water and nurture the little babies.

 

 

Here's the collection of seeds. Mostly flowers, a few herbs...shouldn't be too hard, right?? I did manage not to buy seeds of English primroses once I went online and discovered how tricky they are to grow. These should all be easy peasy. Ha!

The cardinal climber vine is meant to twine around the S&H trellis, which I aim to put up in April. I also have designs on the sunny side of the front lawn for more garden beds, where these sum-lovers will find a home. Hmmm.