Baby basil?

The beets are out from under the plastic, still only 9 sprouts, but many thinned pots, too.  

There were 7 pea sprouts as of this morning.  Boy, do they ever look substantial after all the spindly flimsy marigolds and beets.

If I squint just right at the basil egg cups it looks like there is something poking through the soil.  Hopefully it will be nice and obvious by the time I get home.  It is starting out a sunny day so they should be getting lots of warmth.   Maybe it will be photographable by the time I get home.  What I left this morning looked like dirt, basically, with maybe a little white something that wasn't quite the right dimensions for perlite.  Nonetheless, it's really fast for the basil.  I only put those seeds in on Saturday morning.

Give peas a chance

The peas have sprouted!!

The beets continue along nicely.  I multiple-planted a few of the pots and I have now had to thin those.  Of course, one of the pots is not productive, so I SHOULD have put many seeds in that one.  The flat with the beets should probably come out from under the plastic today.

I hate thinning.  I feel like every plant COULD be a delicious beet if only I had planted them the right distance apart.  I hate trying to choose the ones that will be culled, too.  What if I choose wrong and the one I leave has some dreadful root rot that I didn't notice?  But the empty pots in the flat are telling me why it's good to plant more than one seed where I want only one plant.  

Trading spaces

I've given up on the last of the marigold sprouts and taken the flats out from under the plastic because I have a fear of giving them "damping off disease".  I don't know what that is, exactly, but I don't want them to get it, for sure.

The beets are coming up like gangbusters ... we're up to 8.  They're so pretty and red.  

I replaced the marigold flats with egg cartons with mint and basil.  I started with the mint seeds which were impossibly small.  I got all set to handle the basil with the same kind of precautions and it turns out that the basil seeds are not miniscule, so it's alright.  

I managed to knock one of the marigold flats over, spewing water and soil all over the floor and our newspapers.  It says something that what I am really relieved about is that the marigolds are all (apparently) OK.  No pointless fretting about the handmade bookcase or indeed the books in it for me.

There is a lot of snow on the ground outside.  It's very pretty, but also very snowy.

Beet update

Now (Friday evening) there are 5 beet sprouts and 19 marigold sprouts.  I really, really, REALLY want that last marigold to come up.  

In other news, there is so much snow on the ground that the snowdrops are completely buried and the crocuses are fast disappearing.

Kitchen pot

The chives were not only not sprouting, but they were probably getting very, very cold on the kitchen window.  That thing leaks like there is no putty.  So I have moved them to the same window as the marigolds and put a glass bowl over the top of the pot to give them some nice warm greenhouse action.  

SPROUTS!

The marigolds started to sprout on the Wednesday (March 26), after having been put in the soil on the Sunday (March 23).  That's fantastic in my books.  As of first thing Friday morning, 18 of the 20 possible marigolds had burst forth.  

Also, on Friday morning (March 28) the first of the beets had come out.  

I have started a set of egg cartons to try next, once the marigolds are all out.  I'll move those flats out of the "greenhouse" and into their own tray of water.  I think I'll try basil and mint in the egg cups.  I had thought I would try more marigolds, given how FANTASTIC the marigold experience has been to date, but I would love to have a bit of indoor herb action, too.

Indoor seed starting

We made a trip to the seed store on Saturday (March 22) and came home with a bag filled with hope and promise.  

Zucchini, leeks, cucumbers, string beans, scarlet runner beans, peas, beets and spring onions.

Chives, basil, and mint.

Marigolds, nasturtiums, and rudbeckia.

Cress as an experiment to make sprouts.

Flat of "recycled" and "peat-free" small seed starting pots, complete with clear plastic cover (5 sets of ten pots).  Flat of same stuff larger pots (6 sets of 3 pots).  

From Canadian Tire, I splurged and got the Miracle Gro seed germinating soil to fill them with.

On Sunday, I put peas into the first set of 10, beets into the second, marigolds into the third and fourth (can never have too many marigolds, right?) and rudbeckia into the fifth.   Then I checked it 10 minutes later to see if anything had sprouted.  And ten minutes after that.  And about half an hour after that.  It turns out that I don't have a lot of patience, actually.

I also put some chives into a small indoor pot for the kitchen window, and some cress into a jar in the broom closet for (hopefully) sprouts.

Now winter can REALLY end

There are snowdrops in the front yard.  Not nearly as many as I planted, but still enough for me to be happy.  

First date for the snowdrops was March 24th.  

The start of the year

The growth this year actually started ridiculously early, on about March 6th when the first Zwanenburg Bronze crocuses poked up their heads.  This blog is thus born a little less than a month late.  

It might safely be argued that the crocuses were born a month early, given that I first noticed them in late March last year.  Also, they've already had to withstand ice storms and snow storms with real accumulations.  Last year's date is not particularly good because we covered the ground with the remains of our christmas tree and when I took the boughs off, there were already formed and blossoming crocuses beneath.  It is snowing again today, and there is every reason to expect the plants to get buried completely once more.