February 17th, 2013

Started seeds for my garden this year today. Nice thing to do when there's still so much snow on the ground. I sterilized last years flats and trays, easy to do, just a 10% solution of bleach to water. Rinse them out and wash them and they're ready to go! Planted Rosa Bianca eggplants and Long Cayenne peppers. Was going to plant flat leaf parsley as well, but.. oh! i forgot to soak the seed.

If you're planning on starting your own seeds, a few things you should know: Seeds like the blue range of light, so use plant/aquarium lights. They're not too pricey ($8 - $9) and will give your seedlings the light they need. You don't need to use full spectrum bulbs. You want your seedlings to be 2" under the lights at all times. You can use any method to make sure your seedlings stay at that height. I use my old national geographic magazines, i pile them up underneath my seedling tray, and as the seedlings grow, i take out the magazines to lower the tray and keep those seedlings 2" under the lights at all times.

Februaby 18th, 2013

Planted the flat leaf parsley today. You should soak the seeds of parsley for about a day before you plant them, helps with a faster germination which is something you want when you're starting your own seeds. You want your seedlings to germinate as fast as possible for a couple of reasons. First is, faster germination, faster growth, bigger transplants! Second, the faster the seedlings grow, the less chance there is of damping off. Damping off is a fungal disease that will kill your seedlings. I'll write more on that in a later post. For now, if you want to start your own seedlings, you want warmth, air flow and 12-16 hours of light per day. I go for the higher range, i find 14 - 15 hours of light a day sufficient. Course, that's a lot. I use a timer, i set it to go on at 4am, go off at 7pm. Timers are cheap and really useful. If you go out, you don't have to worry about shutting the lights off. If you don't want to wake up at 4am (who does?) it's ok cause the timer takes care of that. I'll post some photos soon!