2013 Plant Update

There hasn't been much progress with my outdoor seedlings Aaron and I started a couple weeks ago.  Today I made a little plant marker with a plastic dino for some Romaine lettuce.  We plant romaine every year, so I thought a fun marker would be appropriate.  I used an orange permanent marker to label the dino.  

We planted the lettuce in a wooden wine box.  Since we planted the lettuce there has been a few dustings of snow, and the temperatures have been hanging out in the mid-30s (Fº).  So there hasn't been any signs of growth, but hopefully they'll survive, and pop up once we get a few days in the 50s.  

Here are our Milk Jug Seedlings.  They are sitting against our house, on the southern facing side, which gets the most light.  No signs of growth yet, but I hear spring is on it's way.  

Here are our indoor herb plants.  They are doing really well I need to transfer them to larger containers already!  

This is my whole indoor garden.  I am also growing an orchid, some cacti, a gerber daisy, and an evergreen.  I just bought a basil plant.  The basil seeds I started hasn't been growing, because the soil I used was too dense, and took too long to dry out.  The little seedlings didn't get enough air to grow, and are extremely stunted.  That's what's in the two plastic cups in the center of the table.  

Here is a pic so you can see my lighting.  I use a single CFL in the highest wattage I can buy, with a Foto pendant from Ikea.  It seems to do a great job for my plants.  If the light can get a bird of paradise to bloom in the middle of winter, then it's doing good by me.  

Hope you enjoyed, and happy planting, chris!

First Seedlings of 2013

Aaron and I finally got a few seeds started for this years outside garden.  I saw this idea on pinterest to use gallon milk jugs to start seeds.  We drink a lot of milk, so we've been saving the containers every time we finish one off.  As we collected the jugs we'd wash them out with hot water and a little bit of soap.  Before we got started today we removed as much of the labels as we could scrap off.  

Next we used a box cutter to cut a hole in the milk jugs about 3 - 4 inches from the bottom, or just below the bottom of the handle.  Then we used the scissors to cut the container in half, but leaving about an inch still connected.  

Then we filled it most of the way with soil, add the desired about of seeds, and watered.  

We finished off the project by taping the top half to the bottom with clear packing tape.  We also labeled each jug with the type of plant, and date using a fine point sharpie.  We planted mustard seeds, cauliflower, leeks, onion, swiss chard, early hanover melon, and broccoli.  

They are sitting in out back yard against the house, because that happens to be the sunniest part of our yard.  I hope they do well out there.  We got our first snow several hours after we sat them outside, but from what I read they should survive.  I can't wait to be planting our seedlings in the ground!  Happy gardening, chris!