SeedWatch Day 14

Day 14 in the AeroGarden has seen a little change from when we left it a week ago.  The Bak Choi and the Arugula have been thriving.  Here it is at day 14 and you can see true leaves that are well developed

Germination was at 100% and I've known for a week that thinning would be necessary.  I seeded three seeds per cell and it was a simple, though not comfortable, task to pick the weakest of the plants to cull.  Here it is after reducing the herd:

The rocket was only double seeded and I didn't make any reductions there.  For each of these plants, the second set of true leaves is just beginning to emerge. 

These seeds were sown 14 days ago, and they germinated in about 4 days, so they have just 10 days growth on them, but they look like they are ready to be transplanted now.  In 4 days, they will have two weeks growth on them and could be transplanted then.  But to where? 

Put them directly in the Garden  I have a raised bed prepared for them, with a little napa cabbage growing at one end.  I could harden them off and plant the cell plug directly in the garden.

Re-pot them to a larger cell inside.  I could transfer them to a larger container of potting mix and grow them inside for another two weeks.  The clear drawback is that I don't have a place set up with as much light as they are getting in the AeroGarden now.  I'm not sure that another week of less adequate light will do them any favors. Perhaps I need to invest in another LED grow light for larger plants.

Re-pot them to a larger cell outside.  My raised beds have plastic low tunnel covers. Does it make sense to transfer them to larger potting cells and then grow them outside under the tunnel, rather than just planting them directly?  I think that would only make sense if I didn't already have space prepared to plant them directly.

Now, on the other side of the house, the Chard has had a limited germination, and the spinach has failed completely. 

Four out of the five cells of Chard germinated.  But the growth has been satisfactory, with a second set of leaves developing now

After doing a lot more reading, I'm beginning to understand the spinach problems.  The AeroGarden recommends that after germination, the lights should be run 24 hrs/day.  This gives the new seed leaves an abundance of energy, and keeps the true leaves from stretching and becoming spindly.  This has certainly been the case for the leafy greens I have right now.

Swiss Chard on day 14 after thinning.

But, the Bok Choi came up almost immediately and I had to turn on the lights. I have no doubt that this overheated the soil and prevented the spinach from germinating.  It was just too warm.  I've read the care gardeners exercise in germinating spinach, with paper towels in ziploc bags with alternate days in the refrigerator.  I wonder if I could germinate them first, and then transfer them to the AeroGarden cells to grow out.

Seedling Update

So it is two days later than my last update and technically day 6 of SeedWatch with a small burst of activity.

The previously sprouted Bok Choi has continued to develop, while over on the right the Swiss Chard have begun emerging, and even a single lone Spinach sentinel.

The main purpose of this record is to create a time log of how and when things happen.  I'm hoping that by documenting what I see now, I will be able to reference it in the future.  It gives me a baseline for what is normal.

Bok Choi, a close reading

Here I can see that my bok choi jumped right up in less than four days, despite being listed as 10 to 21 days to germination.  And this is from two suppliers, Burpee and Gurney, and the Gurney seeds were a mix of varieties.  None of this seemed to matter, as  all of the seeds germinated within a day of each other.

You can certainly see some variation among the seedlings:  the purple variety on the right seems to be doing very well, and even looks to be starting some true leaves.

I wonder if the top left cell is smaller because of a poor seed there, or if it is simply on the periphery of the seed tray, and may not be getting the same amount of water and nutrients.

I tried to plant 3 seeds in each plug, and in most cases, all of them seemed to germinate. Now, I'm faced with the task at some future point, of eliminating at least one stem from each cell, to give the other two a better chance to thrive.

The Latecomers: Spinach and Chard

On the other side of the seed tray, the Chard has definitely begun to emerge by day 6, while the  spinach is still lagging behind.  And both of these are listed at 7-10 days to germination, so I still have several days to watch them.  Perhaps it is too warm for the spinach to germinate easily.

It isn't surprising that different plant types would emerge from seed at different times, but at about the same time as each other.  Yet it is still interesting to see the process unfold.

I also like the fact that the purple bok choi variety above shows its color from its earliest days, as does the red legs of the chard.

The Minimalist Gardener

I also note that I have not been required to do anything for these seeds in the last week.  I don't worry about water levels, or fiddle with light timers, or fret about damping off or mold growth.  Not yet, anyway.  I've simply been free to watch the seeds unfold.

On the other hand, outside the temperatures have been in the 70s, with today's high projected at 78 F.  That's too high to keep things under plastic row covers, so I open the ends during the day, and close them up in the evening.  This is contrary to the tenets of minimalist gardening, so it troubles me a bit.  Perhaps agribon row covers would not have this problem?

Seed Starting

I have begun starting a new round of seeds in the Aerogarden.  The one thing I can recommend about the AG is that it has an extremely high seed germination rate.  These seeds were sown 4 days ago and have already come up with happy seed leaves.

Seed starting for me has always been a balancing act between opposing forces:  between moisture and damping off, applying a gentle heat but not to the point of drying things out, strong light for growth and to reduce stretching, but not too much to start algae.

It is like setting a series of plates to spinning and hoping to keep them up in the air for the next six weeks.

The Aerogarden keeps the plates spinning for me.  It can monitor all the variables and advise me if something needs attention.  Otherwise, it just does the work of growing and lets me enjoy the results.

Germination success is the greatest reward for me, but the system also has a fun interface that keeps track of all the little details.  Things like when I planted, how long they've been growing, all the details that puzzle me later on. The screen shows me the light cycle I have chosen, the days since seeding, monitors the water levels and the time until adding nutrients.  This means that I can be as hands-on as I want to be, but if something comes up I can neglect it for a week and the garden will take care of things.

Of course I'm not entirely satisfied unless I have put Excel to work in some way.  This is a planting diagram I pulled together that corresponds to the seedlings above.  So I can tell that the Bok Choi and Roquette have sprouted, while the spinach and chard are still thinking about it.

The lower bed

Napa cabbage

This is the lower bed, which I set up today.  The raised bed has been used for the last few years so the soil is in good shape.  There just isn't enough of it to fill the bed.  Today I added peat moss, compost, and one bag of actual potting soil.  The resulting mix was very light and workable.

This bed had been part of a high tunnel in the past but now I'm dropping it down to a low tunnel.  The high tunnel was creating too big a profile and kept catching the wind abs breaking ribs

Napa Cabbage is listed at 75 days to harvest but I need to subtract two weeks since these are already at the transplant stage.  That gives us 60 days from today, so around the beginning of May these should be ready to harvest. 

The March Challenge is to prepare the remaining three beds.  This is the first of those three.

March Gardening

In January, we consulted our planting schedule and garden layout to refresh our concept of what will be planted where for the spring garden. 

February was a month of preparation and assembling the structure of your garden. It was month of finishing the winter garden of October through January, and transitioning to the upcoming spring garden.

We bought and started seed, or located transplants from local sources.  And we sorted out the details of preparing one raised bed, setting up one row tunnel, and planting something in that bed.  If we haven't completed the February challenge, we should take as much time as we need to do it now.  February was the chance for sorting out the details.

March is the month for planting the Spring garden.  Now that the details are worked out, we need to replicate our success three more times.  We have three more beds to prepare, two of which will need row covers.

For each bed:

• Amend the soil: add 1 bag of compost, 1/3 bale peat, 2.5 qts vermiculite, 2 lbs of Garden-Tone, 1 lb rock phosphate or greensand. (This is the Andre Viette mix)  Mix this batch in a wheelbarrow and add to one bed.
• Apply this as a top dressing between existing plants, and more thickly when plants are harvested.
• Set up 5 hoops over the 12 feet of each raised bed, 3 feet apart.  Each hoop is 1/2" grey plastic electrical conduit roughly 8 feet long.  The ends are placed over rebar or inside 1" pipe.
• Cover with 6 mil plastic or agribon row covers.  20' by 10 feet.  That gives us 4' on the ends to reach the bottom of the bed.
• Use pvc clips to hold the cover to the end hoops.
• Secure the edges to 5/4 x 6" decking boards and clamp to the raised bed or weight to the ground.
• Turn the compost boxes.  Adjust moisture and brown material as necessary.  Consider adding one box to the tumbler to have it ready by May.

Harvest

Last month we began the harvest of the winter garden, which we will continue in March. 

Each week, harvest one cabbage head and one bulb of garlic.  Cut and  harvest one handful of Kale, and one parsnip as an accent root.  This will continue in April, with a final harvest in May.
 

Plant the bed:

• Consult the Garden Layout for the spring season.
• As the winter crops are harvested, replace them with the new spring crops:
• Transplant available seedlings from inside.  By now, started seed should be 4 weeks old.  You still have time to start seed in the first week of March, particularly to fill in gaps or harvested produce.  
• Purchase the rest of your transplants from garden centers.
• Work in 4' x 4' raised bed sections, planting groupings of 1 - 6, depending on the size of the finished plant.  
• You don't have to fully plant everything.  Feel free to leave gaps for later transplants or succession plantings.

Bed 1:
Continue to replace Cabbages and Garlic with the Lettuce and Radish group:  2 lettuce plants and 6 radish seeds direct-sown using seed tape or high viz coated seeds.  This should cover half the bed, so we'll need 12 lettuce plants.

For the other half of the bed, plant 2 Bok Choi and 6 Green Onions, for a total of 12 bok choi and 36 green onions.

Bed 2:

Replace Kale and Parsnips with:

Half of the bed: 2 Broccoli Greens and 1 Rutabaga:  total is 12 broccoli greens and 6 rutabaga

Half of the bed:  Swiss Chard, Red Onions:  total is 6 chard and 12 onions.

The March Challenge is to plant something in each of the beds by the end of the month.

March Photo Record #1

This is the exterior of the first raised bed with low tunnel as it was set up last weekend. This is assembled from 4 hoops of 1/2" grey conduit draped with 6 mil plastic.  Because of my troubles with gusting wind, I have clamped the plastic to the top of the raised bed using 2 x 6s and one in-elegant 4x4.

In the background, you can see another bed covered with a brown plastic tarp, weighed down with planting containers and concrete blocks.  That will be part of this month's project.

On the right is a look at the interior.  You can see the conduit hoops (used because they are UV resistant) set into 1" pvc that has been fastened to the raised bed frame.

This bed has been planted for about a week.  Kale is in the foreground, with chard in the middle and butter crunch lettuce at the far end.  I watered it about 4 days ago but you can see that the soil is still darkened.  The plastic creates a microclimate that conserves moisture, and condensation forms on the inside of the plastic.

With cool days as we have in March, I won't need to water much for the next several weeks.

I amended the soil with compost and turned under the leaf mulch that I covered the bed with last November.  When planting, I added Espoma Plant-tone organic fertilizer.












Below is a closer view of the bed

Leafy bed is planted

Just a post to confirm that the Kale and Chard have been planted in the upper bed.  The challenge on the February garden schedule was to get the first bed in by the end of February.  With an off-the-record midnight planting session, I can confirm that this goal was met.

Kale lists itself as 45 days to maturity so I can begin harvesting leaves in the middle of April.  Chard and Buttercrunch lettuce are both listed as 55-60 days to maturity, so they will be ready at the end of April.  Both of these should be picked young, starting with the outer leaves.

The high temperature today was in the low 70s, although at 6 am this morning, I was scraping frost off my windshield as I left the house.  The new seedlings are under plastic so they should be fine.  In fact, the lettuce that I transplanted a few days ago is standing up straight.  So any doubts that I may have had that February was too early for cool season crops have certainly been put to bed, so to speak.

So now I have the second and third beds to plant if I wish. I am following the garden layout I detailed here.   I don't have to do any more than one, but they are sitting there fallow if I am so inclined.