Seed Starting 2013

Posted on March 15, 2013 by admin

Seed Starting

Purpose

To start seeds growing to have viable vegetable plants ready for the warm weather and planting in the outdoor garden. Also to have an earlier harvest season.

Equipment and Materials

– Various seeds (Burpee 66852 Tomato Super Beefsteak Seed Packet
, Burpee 69677 Italian – Eggplant Black Knight Seed Packet
, Burpee Crimson Sweet Watermelon Seeds – 2.5 grams
, Burpee 30957 Impatiens Flavours Hybrid Mix Seed Packet
, Burpee 44461 Marigold Climax Hybrid Mix Seed Packet
)
– Jiffy 5049 Professional Greenhouse 36-Plant Starter Kit
– Dramm 12454 5-Liter Premium High-Grade Plastic Watering Can, Green

Procedure

March 15, 2013 – I like to plant tomatoes before March 17 and i have succeeded with a day or two to spare! I tried using Jiffy Greenhouse with space for 36 seedlings using Jiffy-7 Peat Pellets. I followed the instructions on the package though adjusting the amount of water from 5- 1/4 cups to 4 cups. the pellets expanded as described and absorbed the four cups without any additional water which would have to be drained from the tray. I tried these pellets several years ago and I think that excess water leads to problems. The pellets are more damp then saturated with four cups of water, I can add more in a few days if needed, these Greenhouse kits include a transparent cover which retains moisture. After carefully washing my hands before handling seeds, I used the handle end of a fork to make holes in the top of the expanded pellet and added seeds to each pellet . Tomato seed packs as a rule do not contain many seeds, the Better boy Hybrid had 50 mg of seed and the Super Beefsteak had 400 mg of seed which translates to about 25 seeds in the 50 mg pack and around 100 seeds in the 400 mg pack. The Better Boy hybrid filled one Greenhouse container with a few seeds in each pellet whereas the Super Beefsteak filled about 2/3 of the Greenhouse container with one seed to a pellet. the remainder of the Supper Beefsteak Greenhouse container I planted Crimson Sweet Watermelon with 2 -3 seeds per pellet and have some extra seed for direct planting outdoors just in case.

March 21, 2013 – I have noticed that the Super Beefsteak variety has germinated.  I didn’t remove the clear cover which has quite a bit of condensation on it, but I could see the small sprouts.  The other tray with Better Boy hybrid and watermelon is showing no activity and has less condensation on the cover.

Super Beefsteak seedlings

Super Beefsteak seedlings

March 23, 2013 – Super beefsteak seedlings!

March 24, 2013 – Eggplant seeds were pretty difficult to find. I found Black Knight Eggplant seeds and again used the Jiffy pellet Greenhouse tray to starrt them. I started by adding 4 cups of lukewarm water to the tray, replacing pellets in the tray locks if they floated up with the water. I waited about 30 minutes until the pellets expanded absorbing the water in the tray. I used the blunt end of a pen to pol=ke holes for teh seeds in teach pellet and carefully sprinkled one eggplant seed per pellet. I covered the tray with the clear plastic top and set aside.

Eggplant seeds

preparing pellet trays

Greenhouse tray with water

Using a pen to make holes in expanded pellets

Sprinkling eggplant seeds into pellets

Eggplant tray covered and set aside

 

Dried marigold flowers
March 31, 2013 – I saved some dead head marigold flowers from the previous year in a paper bag. Today I spoiled out the flower heads from the bg and opened them revealing the seeds and planted them in the jiffy greenhouses. i also planted some Burpee 30957 Impatiens Flavours Hybrid Mix Seed Packet. These seeds were tiny packaged in a foil packets, there were only maybe 20 seeds in a package which were difficult to work with because of the small size of the seed. I managed to plant one Jiffy 5049 Professional Greenhouse 36-Plant Starter Kit with two packages of seeds.

Marigold seeds from flower heads

Marigold seeds from flower heads

Marigold seeds planted!

April 6, 2013 – I think mice got to my Better Boy Hybrids and ate the cotyledons from the stem, so damage done, not sure if they will sprout scondary leaves from the stems. A few of the Better Boys survived and the Super Beefsteaks were unharmed.But the tomato and watermelon seedlings are getting spindly, probably from inadequate sunlight.

Plant Cart Plans 1/22/1995

So i assembled my Plant Cart and light stand. I built irt feom PVC pipe, tees and elbows, which I never glued together, so I can assemble and disassemble it as needed, it was now needed. the room has morning sunlight and i will augement with the artificial full spectrum fluorescent bulbs

Plant cart with lights mounted.

Plant light System

April 7, 2013 – Photo Update

Marigold seedlings

Eggplants sprout!

Best Boy Hybrids

Super Beefsteak Tray

Transplanting Tomato Seedlings

Purpose

Transfer seedling pellets to a larger container to promote growth.

Equipment and Materials

– 9 ounce Paper Cups
– 5 pounds Potting Soil
– Foil Cake Pans

Transplant Materials and Tomato flat

Procedure

Poke holes in bottom of paper cups for drainage


1. poke holes in bottom of paper cup for drainage.

Fill bottom of cup with potting soil


2. fill cup about 1/4 with potting soil.
Rppts showing through pellet mesh
3. tear mesh of tomato plant pellet carefully and plc firmly in cup.
4. use trowel to fill remaining space in cup with potting soil.
5. tamp down soil and add water.


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Home Garden 2013

Posted on March 8, 2013 by admin

March Snowstorm

Although we are getting a bit of a snowstorm, March is when I start planning my garden. I received my seed catalogue and I noticed a Burpee seed display at my local supermarket. I like to have my seed trays planted by Saint Patricks Day (March 17), which means early in March I start taking stock of my supplies of seed trays and potting soil.  This year i will be renting a roto-tiller from my local Ace Hardware store, but first I will need to clean the winter debris.

 

2013 seed packetsNow that the snow is melted, I have stopped by the grocery store to buy some seed packets.  I like to start tomatoes before St. Patricks Day (March 17) so I can harvest tomatoes early in the Summer.  Last year I planted watermelon but it was late June and I got nothing, so this year I am starting the watermelon indoors.

 

 

 

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Tomatoes 2012

Posted on July 23, 2012 by admin

I have grown tomatoes for many years, usually from seeds; Big boy and Big Girl hybrids.  This year since I started planning my garden late, I went to an heirloom tomato sale at Old layfayette Village and purchased nearly mature plants of different heirloom varieties.

July 23, 2012, only two tomatoes harvested; a small Early Girl and small Roma, each about two inch diameter.Normally I would make a tomato sandwich with the first tomato, but these weren’t large enough.  But I cut them in wedges sprinkled crushed basil, salt and pepper, both tomatoes were tasty and sweet, can’t wait for more.  There was a Husky Red that looked ready to pick but disappeared from the plant, thinking I am getting “critters”. Otherwise the Sweet Chelsea (extra large cherry tomato variety) and the Ramapos have quite a bit of fruit growing. Wait and see!

July 27, 2012 – Its been a hot summer so far, hot and humid is good for tomato plants as they are tropical origin. Eighty to ninety degrees is optimal for tomato growth, above ninety-five degrees, thought should be given to protection from the heat with a cheesecloth sunshade or mulch the base of teh plant to protect the roots from heat.  Temperatures have ben averaging eighty-five in my garden, so I won’t be taking any action for extreme heat.

August 12, 2012 – Been picking tomatoes regularly. Sweet Chelsea’s are picked daily. Ramapo tomatoes have started ripening and are very tasty. The Czech Bush tomato was very sweet, more to come.

2012 Tomato Harvest

2012 Tomato Yield

2012 Tomato Yield

After a late start, the tomato yield was pretty good from the 8 plants I bought. The cherry tomato plant, Sweet Chelsea, was a good producer of flavorful, sweet cherry tomatoes. the patio tomatoes purchased from Walmart were also very productive, although I feel the Ramapo and other heirloom tomatoes had better flavor. when the two Ramapo plants were totaled together were about halF as productive as the Patio tomatoes. The Patio tomatoes were grwon in terracotta pots with generic potting soil while the Ramapo tomatoes were planted in the garden.

date Ramapo A Ramapo B Patio Sweet Chelsea Czech Bush Husky Red Early Girl Roma
07/15/12 1
07/18/12 1
07/26/12 1
08/01/12 2
08/07/12 7
08/11/12 1 11 1
08/12/12 1 2 1
08/16/12 1
08/17/12 4
08/18/12 1 1 3 1
08/20/12 2 4
08/26/12 1
08/27/12 6 3
08/30/12 1 2
09/06/12 2 20 4
09/09/12 2 2 1
09/16/12 3 2 8 2 2 1
09/19/12 1 4 4 1
10/04/12 2 4 2
Total 9 7 25 67 8 2 5 3 126

 

 

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2012 Garden

Posted on June 10, 2012 by admin

After last year’s failure in my shady yard, I had a landscaper clear some trees and bushes away, fencing a new area for my garden where there would be more sunlight. So far I planted “Silver Queen” and “Peaches and Cream” (bi-color) sweet corns alternating the rows of each. I also planted Cucumber, Watermelon and Pumpkin seeds. After a little over a week, the corn, cucumber, sunflower and pumpkin seeds germinated and could be seen breaking the soil surface. There has been quite a bit of rain lately, but when it doesn’t rain, I have been watering the garden with an osciillating sprinkler
for 30 minutes in the morning.

I also bought eggplant and pepper plants from a garden center and heirloom tomato plants from a farm plant sale. The heirlooms included Ramapo, Husky Red, Sweet Chelsea, Czech Bush and Early Girl. I bought one Roma Tomato plant from Walmart. I planted them approximately 24 inches apart and immediately put them in tomato cages.

July 22, 2012 – So far I picked a few small tomatoes and everything is growing pretty well.  The peppers are kinda small and the eggplants have many flowers but no fruit as of yet.  I noticed some missing tomatoes so I think there may be an animal getting into the garden. I checked the fence and found some places where the fence had some openings and closed them.  I am going to install a wildlife camera to monitor the situation.

December 2012
After installing the camera, I didn’t find any large animals in the garden, but mostly the damage was from squirrels and groundhogs or rabbits.

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Amaryllis

Posted on December 9, 2011 by admin

i bought an Amaryllis plant from Home Depot a few year back and it is still flowering biannually. It was getting crowded in the original pot adn I decided to break it up into a few new containers. I bought some regular potting soil, large clay pots. I began by turning the original pot containing the Amaryllis bulbs upside down over some newspaper and gently removing and separating the bulbs. I then partially filled the new pots with soil, made an indentation in the midle of the pot and set one or two bulbs in each pot adding soil but not completely covering the bulb’s crown where new growth occurs. I watered the pots which were in aluminum pans and left outside in rainy weather before bringing them inside the house. Once green shoots appear, start watering again!

 


2012 season: All repotted bulbs are growing and have been placed outdoors for the warm summer months.
November 11, 2012
It’s been a year since I repotted my Amaryllis, and during the summer months all the bulbs sprouted leaves but no blooms. Some of the bulbs which did not sprout leaves during the preceding Winter, sprouted outdoors in the Summer. I had believed that these bulbs were dead, but they surprised me! I brought the Amaryllis plants back in the house near an eastely facing window for the winter in late September. The summer growth seems to be wilting. They are now on limited water for the winter till the summer growth browns and new green sprouts.

 

Winter Blooms

Winter blooms

March 8, 2013:
My Amaryllis continues to bloom after wintering inside the house near an east facing window.

 

 

 

March 15,2013 - getting productive plants this year!

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Garden Shed Rehab Project – Doors

Posted on November 15, 2011 by admin

I have a building on my property that was used as a pony barn/stall. It was built using particle board. I installed a workbench inside and a peg board for tools. This was fine until the particle board doors rotted off and a hole appeared in the particle board back wall. The roof was made of shingles and looked okay, but to get through the winter, I needed to fix the doors as well as the hole in the wall. As most of the wood panel was rotten, the existing doors needed to be removed and replaced. I thought about replacing the entire shed with a prefab building, but since i like working with wood and a new shed would be costly, i thought that I would give remodeling the old shed a try as a less expensive alternative to replacement.

First i needed a front barn type door and to fix the back wall before winter. I was a little apprehensive about building doors from scratch, so I went to the local Library and borrowed a book about building sheds. In the book, I found a plan for a Z type door. This door is pretty simple consisting of wood planks side by side with a Z shaped brace to hold it together. To repair the back wall, I decided to create a doorway to go into the wooded area of my property, the shed acts as part of my fence around my back lawn, i used the same plan as for the front barn doors except i split the doror in two parts like a dutch door, so I could just open the top for ventilation. For both doors I used 1×6 pine planks (which actually are 5 1/2 inchs) to make two 36 inch doors for a 71 inch opening. 6 1×6 pieces gave me 33 inches, so i usd a 1×4(3.5 inches) which gave me 36.5 inch doors. I used 1×4 for the zbracing securing with 1 1-4 screws, two screws per brace per panel. Surprisingly the door was very rigid.

Hints for making doors:

1. When selecting wood for the doors, lay out boards on floor of lumberyard to check if they fit tightly against one another.
2. if possible, use waterproof finish before hanging doors on shed.

UPDATE: December 1, 2012
The windstorm resulting from Hurricane sandy toppled a large pine tree atop of my shed, totally destroying it. This ends the debate of whether to renovate the old shed or to build a new one has evolved into whether to build it myself or buy/install a prebuilt shed. I have looked through a couple books from the library which is how i found the door building technique for the old shed. I also looked online at local shed builders and I was looking at tinyhouse plans. I visited my local Home Depot and Lowes. Lowes had many display models onsite and Home Depot had a nice “build your own” application on its website. So far all I am sur about is the size 12 feet by 10 feet.

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Second Season Garden

Posted on August 10, 2011 by admin

8/2/2011 – Second Season Garden means planting a late summer/fall garden. Today 8/4 i sowed seeds for Bonanza Hybrid and Green Goliath Broccoli plus Igloo Lettuce. I have some heirloom leek seeds, leeks can be planted in August but i thought the growing season at 3 months was long.

8/10/2011 – The broccoli germinated in about 5 days which was surprising because the package said up to 3 weeks for germinqtion. The igloo lettuce has not yet broken the soil surface, again mislead in the opposite direction this time, there germination time was 10 days. I planted cucumbers in late June and harvested one today. Lots of flowers on the cucumbers seem to indicate a good yield. The cucmbers sre located where they get late afternoon shade. I will break ground for the leeks today next to some squash plants sown in late June.

9/1/2011 – The lettuce never sprouted, a little disappointing and i din’t get around to planting the leeks. The broccoli after germinating suspiciously quickly seems be stuck in the cotyledon sprout stage without much growth. I think that some of teh problem is with the lack of sunlight in my yard. Looks like quite a few cucumbers are growing and finally i have a few tomatoes now, hoping they will ripen soon, the weather is turning a bit cooler.

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Morning Glorys

Posted on May 31, 2011 by admin

Morning Glorys are great flowers that are easy to grow, easy to collect seed and propagate. Morning glorys are vines so I try to use it to grow on trellises, mailbox and sign posts if I can. nother idead is a rock wall near my font stairs. This year i planted seeds for purple and white Morning Glorys in some rock walls. First I used some ptting soil to make platforms for the seeds to grow and root on, then I watered using a watering can with diffuser. I thenb ade the seeds to the wet potting soil and covered with additional protting soil and watered again. Seeds from morning glorys are easily recovered from dried flowers and are rather large and easy to collect. I planted a patch of morning glories a few years ago and they are a perenial garden, every year purple flowers appear in the summer months.

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Foxglove

Posted on May 31, 2011 by admin

I planted fox glove in the front yard which gets morning sun. I started them in seed trays and planted in late June. The first year thee were no flowers but the next year, many foxgloves reappeared with tall stalks full of flowers. This is aa beautiful perennial for deer country as it is deer resistant. So far I have not had any problem in an unfenced area of the garden where the Foxgloves grow.

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Hibiscus

Posted on May 29, 2011 by admin

Hibiscus flowering indoors October 15, 2012

I’ve had a potted hibiscus for about three years and dutifully brought it inside every year. This year it doesn’t look that great so I am going to prune it. There are a bunch of dead leaves, they are green but really limp although the soil in the pot is moist.

I have my pruning shears which i will sterilize with some rubbing alcohol before I begin. I wipe the blades of the pruning shears with an alcohol soaked paper towel spilling some on my leg (careful!!). I let the blades stand damp for a few minutes to kill any germs that may have been pn the shears, wipe dry and begin pruning. I plan to cut at least 1/3 of each branch trying to leave any new growth. I lost my nerve to cut off the limp leaves, they are green and are possibly providing some energy to the plant. Its just starting to get warm in New Jersey so the leaf issue might be temperature related as I have the plant outdoors and the night temperatures have been under 60F.
hint: rub some 3 in one oil on your shears with a paper towel to prevent rust!


November 11, 2012
Its been a year since I pruned my Hibiscus and the summer month were very productive with many blooms throughout ther Summer. I brought the Hibiscus indoors in late September when temperature were still in the sixties. Indoors the Hibiscus is displaying daily blooms, but is now dropping a few leaves. The plant is in an eastern facing window. There are still flowers blooming with more flower buds in November. A few leaves are dropping but that may be due to a decrease in watering for the winter.
March 15, 2013
The hibiscus was very productive, nearly continuous flowering. Watering once a week and near an eastern exposure window with a room temperature of 65 degrees F.

Continuous Hibiscus blooms during winter

 

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