Transplanted into 4 inch pots

Some of the vegetables and flowers have been transplanted into 4 inch pots now. About 2 tables worth.




Many many left to transplant as you can see, but they are not quite ready. Still need the roots to be more full in the plug. Many are getting very close to being ready to move.


Petunias...sorry for the sideways picture.

Peppers (above)

Marble Arch Mix Salvia growing bigger.
Marigolds (above)

Cilantro

Growing Fast

I was told about this mister and it has worked great for watering the plugs when the starts are tiny. Doesn't disturb them. The only thing I have trouble with it knowing how much I should water. You are suppose to water deeply, then let the soil dry out some, then water deeply again, etc. I feel like I water a little everyday and I know that is not good because you can get root rot.




Everything is growing fast.
Cilantro. I thought it was neat that the cilantro is so new but it already looks so much like cilantro! Need to transplant soon. I was told I could move to the next fertilizer 13-2-13 once the starts had a good amount of roots. So I have just put on the first shot of 13-2-13.

Salvia (above)
Verbena
Cucumbers and squash. The squash are just peaking up.
Look how pretty the roots are! These are sweet peas.


First plugs transplanted into 4 inch pots...these are cucumber starts. Really could have seeded these directly into 4 inch pots.

Starting to Sprout! Took a week or so.

Seeds are germinating!

Sweet Peas are just sprouting up above.
Marigolds (above)
Cilantro and Chives (above)
Salvia (above)

As soon as the seedlings start to pop up (preferably waiting until most of your seedlings are mostly all up), it's time to fertilize with 9-45-15. The phosphorus (the number 45) helps with root growth.
I am learning about fertilizing the flowers for the first time this year, but I have someone who is very knowledgeable who is teaching me. I am very excited to learn!

I am told I put this type of fertilizer on about every 2-3 watering (about 1x a week) until the seedlings have their true leaves. When the seedlings first come up, those two leaves are called cotyledons. The next leaves that come--you will tell a difference in what the leaves look like--those are their true leaves.


I chose to use a fertilizer siphon to fertilize my flowers. It took awhile for me to get it working because I guess you aren't suppose to have a Y on your faucet and you have to have enough pressure coming out of the other end of your hose in order to get the fertilizer to suck out of the bucket. When I got a watering wand with more pressure, then the siphon easily started working. The things you learn....
The fertilizer siphon in the picture above is the brass piece screwed on just above the red hose, plus the small black hose that is sitting in the white bucket. You can buy them at any nursery supply or a Wilco. When you use a fertilizer siphon, it dilutes the fertilizer I have in the white bucket by 16-1....so the fertilizer you are spraying onto your seedlings will actually be a calmer blue color than in the white bucket. If it's not, then you will be burning your plants because the fertilizer will be too strong. Also it is important to know that before you fertilize your seedlings, you need to make sure the potting soil media is already damp. Never fertilize onto dry potting soil because you can also burn the plants.

I used a postal scale to measure my fertilizer :)

Growing Flowers from Seed

I've grown flowers from seed in the greenhouse the last 3 years and loved it! This year I am filling the greenhouse full and will sell them. I thought I would blog about the whole process-from seed to final flower.

Here are some pictures so far. I started planting the seeds at the middle/end of January. At this point most of the seedlings have popped up.

Here I am filling up the plug trays. I chose to use the size that have 162 holes per tray. Next year I may decide to use a tray with a larger plug size but we will see how it works out with this size this year. I only have 2 heating beds so I can't have too big of plugs or I won't be able to fit all my trays on the heat.


Filling the plug trays with potting soil. To be safe, I disinfected everything that would come into contact with the potting soil- tray, table, scoop, etc.

I "hired" my husband to be the seeder. He has patience with tedious things!

I decided to use this GroMor Seeder this year. The last few years I have just seeded with my fingers but I would waste a lot of seeds because more than one seed would fall at a time. This vacuum seeder worked well for us. He is planting marigold seeds in this picture which was actually the biggest size seeds we planted. The seeder worked great for the tiny seeds.
Some seeds need to be covered and other seeds it is important to leave them on top of the potting soil mix because light aids in their germination.

Here the seeds are all planted, and the plug trays are ready to be set in the heating beds.

One of the trays we covered with vermiculite because it said it helped to keep in the moisture, but I think next year I will choose not to do that.



This is one heating bed. The other heating bed I have is wider so you can fit 14 trays instead of 11 like this one. Under the plug trays is sand, and in the sand are heating cords that heat up all the sand. It helps the roots grow faster. I turned the heating bed to about 65-70 degrees.