Seeds in!

[T]

Hi All,

Tuesday, I spent nine hours cleaning out wees and two hours planting seeds. I am still soar! But Since Herbal medicinae is one of my hobbies, I hit the BF&D (bone, flesh , and cartilage) pretty hard and most of the soreness is down.

We are not suppose to plant to the first week in June, due to the random freezes, but we are having a hot spell (80F day and 50 night), so I took the risk and planted anyway.

I have terrible luck with tiny seeds. But I took the risk and planted two types of onions, eggplant, and tomatillos which have tiny seeds. After June I can not get ANYTHING to sprout up. I presume it is the heat cooking them in the soil, but I do not know. It could be the earwigs eating them too.

So now I wait and wonder if anything will sprout. Oh, and complain about the feed hurting, my back hurting, my legs hurting, yada, yada, yada...

And how the hell did my head get sunburned whilst wearing this hat !?!?!

Most of the seeds went in in the dark. I had to switch my headlamp to Red and the bugs attached me with white. Gave me a start when some of the seed packed in white paper envelopes and white seeds. The seed disappeared under red light. I thought they had shipped me an empty packet. Temporarily switching back to white light solved that issue.

The waiting on the sprouting is driving me nuts. PATIENCE!!!!

[T]

And I have been watering the tiny sees every day since. But today we are having a thunderstorm, so I get to skip out.

I love thunderstorms, fertilizer from the sky (electricity + nitrogen + rain)

[Snag]

Why didn't you start stuff indoors ? I know our last-frost date here is earlier than yours , but if you had started 'maters an' peppers , an' other stuff back in March (late Feb here) you'd be set to rock-n-roll now . I even started my squashes in trays just to get a jump-start on the harvest . Some of my tomatoes are over a foot tall now ...'taters are the same .

[Snag]

I was just looking at electroculture ... I decided it might be difficult to implement in a plot that's 25 x 40 without having a "material impact" on my electricity bill .

[songbird]

T wrote: ...

in sandy or more mineral soils it might be really hard to keep the adequately moist.

watering once a day may not be enough in any kind of heat. and i don't mean super soggy watering, but just enough to keep them more uniformly moist.

songbird

[T]

Made me look it up!

Summarizer Electroculture gardening is a method of plant cultivation that uses electrical currents to promote plant development and boost output.1 It involves wrapping wooden dowels in copper wire and sticking them into the dirt near the garden.0 While it is relatively new and little recognized, it has recently become more popular among gardeners and academics.1 However, a gardening Instagrammer, Kevin, has recently criticized this gardening fad as a foolish gardening fad.

[T]

My wife is violently allergic to the mold in dirt

[T]

My ground pots are mostly peat moss.

And they show the wet stain the next day, so I "hope" I have it in hand! We will see....

[Snag]

That has got to put a major crimp on cultivation of any sort since your growing season is shorter . Any way you could do an attached (to the outside of the house) small hotbox for starting seedlings ? Attached to the south side , being attached it draws some heat from the house . We're ahead of y'all here , I've got 'maters a foot tall already . I did start mine inside , end of February . Since my corn came up spotty - old seed - I planted some red ripper and purple hull field peas in the gaps in the corn rows today . Right after I built 40 feet of (wire and string) trellis for the green beans since they have started running .

[T]

I have though of one of those sprouting tables on wheels with their own blue/red led lamps for the garage. But I have not gone that much further.

I'd love a green house, but maybe in my next life I could afford one.

What is a hot box? Can it survive freazing cold weather?

[Snag]

Some people call them cold frames . Premise is to keep the temps inside above freezing . Basically a box with a glass top , inside painted black to gain heat from the sun . Recess into the ground and it will help keep temps up - assuming the soil isn't frozen .

[T]

One week now and still no sprouts. This patience thing sucks!

[T]

Twelve days in and I have sprouts! Dicots (zuchini, cucumbers, tomatillos) and monocots (white and bunching onions)!

The dicot sprouts in the eggplant section might be weeds though.

If this actually works out, I will have saved a ton of money not having to buy plants at the green house (wally world).

Oh and my bilberry bushes, now four years old, have had a massive growth spurt and have a bazillion immature lowers on them! They got a lot of water too.

Odd the three cherry tomato plants I did buy at the nursery have a few flowers on them and they are not even five inches tall yet. They look happy with all the water.

Thunderstorms are forecast again today. I good drenching with sky Nitrogen water and I don't have to go out and water today. Love the way things grow after a good thunder storm. Well except the weeds.

Whoever told me to water the daylights out of the seeds, snag I think, was spot on. Thank you!

[Snag]

Nope , it was songbird . Good advice too ! Mine are all well enough established that they're not as sensitive to water levels . Speaking of which , I'll post an update on my drip system .

[T]

Found it. It was Mike:

Thank you Mike!