Thursday, May 10, 2012

Potting Up

I have been trying to write this post for a couple of weeks now but I just haven't been able to find the time and then the one time I did sit down at the computer to get it done Blogger and Picasa were not cooperating so I gave up. So here's my latest attempt at updating the progress of the summer seedlings.

The potting up process began on April 30 with this lot of tomatoes and eggplant and another flat of pepper seedlings not shown. These seedlings were all sown of March 30 with bottom heat under grow lights. I transition the seedlings to natural light for about a week to 10 days or more before I pot them up. You can see the motley collection of pots that I scrounged up to pot them up into.



A new addition to the pot collection this year is a bunch of one-quart yougurt conatiners. My husband and I consume about 2 quarts of yogurt every week and even though I reuse the containers for a lot of things, they were starting to stack up. So, when the annual search for pots to put my seedlings into started I hit upon the brilliant idea (I hope) of drilling holes into the bottoms of the containers and using them as pots.



Here's the first round of potted up babies and more seedlings coming along. These were being coddled for the first couple of days and nights on my cozy warm living room floor (radiant heat!).



After a couple of days indoors to let the roots recover from the shock of being disentangled and then popped into new soil the plants have to go back outside. I don't bother to shade them on cloudy days but I protect the new transplants on sunny days by putting them under the patio table or I rig up some other way to shade them. These are my broccoli and kale seedlings on May 3 when the weather was cool and foggy.



The last few days have topped out at 80ºF so the brassicas have been hiding in the shade of the tomato and pepper seedlings which are sitting on the table.



The tomato and pepper seedlings are coming along ok. In the past I have schlepped the flats indoors at night to help them along, but I just can't be bothered to do that this year. They got a few nights of that treatment early on but now that the nighttime temperatures are staying above 40ºF they are just having to tought it out in the cold at night. There's still a few small pots of slow growing baccatum pepper seedlings that I have to pot up which you can see in the foreground.



The eggplant seedlings are coming along ok.



These are the Lark's Tongue kale and Apollo broccoli seedlings this morning. They have grown quite a bit since May 3.



This is a new batch of peppers and tomatoes that I potted up 2 days ago. I put them outside this morning after letting them sit in the "recovery room" for a couple of days and nights.



They get to transition to full sunlight again under a double layer of row cover cloth that I rigged up to provide some shade.



Now it's time to get the rest of those seedlings potted up...

So many plants, so little space, I can't possibly stuff all those babies into my garden so I'm thinking of having a little plant sale. Interested?

7 comments:

  1. So much work! They're really lucky. If you were here, we could just rig up a table out front. I'm sure there'd be takers.

    Your kale is well ahead of mine. . . I finally planted today. I hope to avoid the bolt/wait cycle for kale, and have it year-round. Yum! As always, things look terrific. Those yogurt containers are perfect for tomatoes.

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  2. That is a lot of seedlings. I wouldn't be able to fit them in my garden. This year the only ones that got potted up were the three tomato plants. It takes so little space when you have small transplants. I think I've given up on transplanting most everything else.

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  3. I like the idea of using the yogurt containers for seed pots! I may try that myself. I don't go through as much yogurt as you and your husband, but there is plenty of pint containers that I could use. Thanks for the idea!

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  4. I pot up all my seedlings too - I do enjoy the process. Yoghurt pot pots are a great idea.

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  5. Great idea reusing the yogurt containers! Margarine tubs would work too. That is an awesome number of seedlings. I'm afraid that I didn't grow one single thing in pots myself to transplant into the garden. I had skin cancer back in January, and the darn plastic surgeon gave me epinephrine, which I can't have, and put me into the ER with out of control high blood pressure. It has taken me months to get back on my feet after that episode, and growing my own plants from seed has taken a back seat to recuperation.

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  6. Love the recycling! Can't wait to see your garden!

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  7. Quite a crop you have growing!

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