Mater Monday has arrived! The tomato sprouts were ready to be transplanted into their new cells. Not cell blocks like the incarceration kind, growing cells!
Before I got to sprout transplanting though, I had to wander around and collect some equipment, for I had other gardening work to do aside from transplanting the tomato sprouts. We've had some beautiful weather here in North Idaho lately, daytime highs in the 60's (Fahrenheit), which is not common let me tell you! So as I wandered out to grab the planters I needed for transplanting everything, I had to stop and take a peek at the garlic's progress:
Ten days ago the scapes of the bulbs were barely peeking up through the mulch, now they are beyond visible! I might have let out a little squee of joy. Okay, I did squeal in glee a bit, my dog judged me so I feel moderately not repentant at all, lest you all want to jump on board that train...
Anyway, after getting my planting cells out of the equipment shed, I got to work doing seedling work. The first order of business was the echinacea, Narrow Leaf Echinacea to be exact.
This year I am on a bit of a quest to make sure my medicinal herb garden game is on point. There are some ornamental cone flowers (echinacea) round here, but I wanted the true medicinal cultivar. So, I ordered these seeds from Pinetree Seeds, and for the last three weeks they have been chilling in the freezer doing the whole stratification thing so I will hopefully get a great germination rate. We'll see!
It took me two whole minutes to fill a recycled plastic cup with soilless potting mix, spread out the seeds, lightly cover, tamp them down, and water them. After labeling the cup, I placed them on my grow shelf and in 10-21 days we should see some baby echinacea plants. I sure hope so!
Then, I moved on to dividing and potting on my little Hollyhocks. I LOVE Hollyhocks! I am so excited to see what colors I get out these mixed seeds, and before you could say old fashioned tall flower of awesomeness, I had all twelve little Hollyhock plants divided and put in their own compost filled cells.
Next, it was tomato time. Before I started the tomato sprout transplant project, I had a fortifying snack of some Lily's white stevia sweetened chocolate and some roasted almonds, because I had 150 sprouts to transplant.
My germination rate was bussin (Sorry, I spent last night throwing shot put and discus in my yard with a bunch of teenage boys, my brain is full of Zoomer slang, bruh). Anyway, I got an overall germination rate of 90%, it was actually closer to 95% but my old Stupice seeds didn't germinate well, and since they were like seven years old, I wasn't mad about it. At least some sprouted!
After filling my tiny cell tray with soilless growing medium, I carefully, wielding my trusty pencil, stuck the sprouts into their individual cells, carefully notating the amount per variety transplanted on the painter's tape that I stuck to the side of the cell tray. Just like in most other things, accurate record keeping is beyond a must! Especially if you want to save your seeds!
The tomatoes didn't really take that long to transplant, as I have been doing my tomatoes this way for over a decade, well, let's just say I'm proficient at it. I then moved onto the basil.
Now, I am pretty fond of basil. I might even be a basil fanatic, so I am not ashamed to say that I started 48 cells of basil seed. Nope. Not ashamed all, because pesto. Plus, I am going to intersperse some basil plants in my rose garden because I want to. Also, I just love the smell of the stuff. I love throwing basil, cucumber, and mint into a pitcher of water for an infusion and then sipping an ice cold glass of the stuff while I sit on my front porch listening to big band records. Come on summer!
And on that note, I am going to prune this grow log here. I still have about an acre or two of yard to rake, pine needles to burn, and an herb/rose garden to build. You know, before next weekend. Farm life is fun!!
Have you grown echinacea from seed before? I've tried a couple of times, but can't seem to get them past the first seedling leaves stage.
I haven't! I've always just gotten some divisions from established plants, but I wanted to give it a try! And that's interesting that they wouldn't get past cotyledon stage for you? I'm intrigued and a bit excited to see if I can get them to do their thing.
I hope you'll let me know how you go.
I like transplanting small tomatoes, it gives delicious hot taste to my soup at cold night 🍲 nice experience I appreciate your efforts
Aww, thanks @worldstories! I always enjoy your comments, and I enjoy small tomatoes in my soup too lol!
I don't know how you get so much done in one day. And blog also. Absolutely amazing 👏
It got upto 10 C here today, that is 50 F. Very warm with sun out. And yes, unusual for this time of year also.
A great taste of spring for sure.
Take care 🙂
!BBH
!ALIVE
Well this is going to blow your mind, that only the first half of my day, ha haha! (That wasn't a crazy laugh, I promise😜)
And wow! That is warm, I hope you got some Vitamin D absorption action in! Today it is absolutely beautiful out, so I am kinda squirming about a bit as I get all my Hive/Listnerds work done so I can go outside! Well, I have already been outside, the critters had to have breakfast, but I am chomping at the bit to get back out there. Ack, I am blathering, hope you are having the best Tuesday ever!
!PIZZA
Lol, wow, lol, wow.
Busy busy, maybe I should take stalk of what my day looks like 👍
!BBH
!ALIVE
I had a positive fantastic day.
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Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you.
. Keep up the fantastic work
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Really nice post, things are coming along well. Just a few questions though,
1)aren't the pine needles good for mulching?
2)why are you growing medicinal herbs, don't you have a CVS nearby, LOL (just kidding)
Morning! I adore questions!!
So the pine needles are a touch acidic, so I only mulch acid loving plants (my blueberries) with them, and I have twenty acres of pine trees, so you are talking a serious amount of needles, which left unchecked, is a fire hazard in the summer. I have so many pine needles I could bale them as hay!
CVS is over twenty miles away, have you seen the price of gas?!?! LOL!
Thanks for the information about the pine needles. I was only kidding about CVS, but 20 miles away is a good haul, lol
Just wondering, are old seeds really that bad and how long do they generally last?
Seed germination rate decreases as they age. I keep my seeds stored properly (dry and dark), and seeds can germinate after decades, it's just that the rate at which they do so goes down. Typically seeds have less than a 50% germination rate after four years of age, but there are always exceptions to the rule, Nature is really good about reminding us of that lol!
Those hollyhocks seedlings are so cute, I can't keep looking at them (^_^)
Aww! I gaze upon them in adoration quite a bit too, lol!! You are so right, they are so cute!
Second comment, this one from ListNerds. Can someone give me a code snippit for adding pics to my ListNerds emails? lol
AAH! I learned how I do it from @thisismylife's awesome post!
https://leofinance.io/@thisismylife/listnerds-newbies-guide-or-embedding-images-in-html-emails
Basically you upload your image to ImgBB and copy the full html linked text and then embed it in the Insert/Media/Embed section of the creating a mail on Listnerds. She goes over the process step-by-step. If you have any more questions, just holler!
Thanks love!
I deliberately keep mailing it out as well lol, because there will be new users all the time as well as those where it still fails to do correctly.
I guess it's always going to be useful :)
Thanks for sharing!
Thanks 😊
Your the best
!BBH
!ALIVE
You Are Alive so I just staked 0.1 $ALIVE(15/30)@generikat! to your account on behalf of @bradleyarrow.
The tip has been paid for by the We Are Alive Tribe
through the earnings on @alive.chat, feel free to swing by our daily chat any time you want.
Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you.
. Keep up the fantastic work
Do you like the doubled hollyhocks or are you a purist like me and only do singles? Also you like the "black" varieties? I don't! I grow the perennial, biennial, and annual varieties here.
I only have singles, they are my grandma's favorite flower and I grow them because they remind me of her:) It sounds like you are a hollyhock enthusiast! I don't have any of the black ones, my favorite's are the magenta and lavender/orchid color. Okay, I am full of poo, I love them all lol!
I really appreciate you sharing your gardening expetise. Thank you.
I appreciate that you called my ramblings expertise! You get all the thanks!!!😊
I, too, love hollyhocks, and I used to have a nice row of them beside our house. But the deer love them just as much as I do, so I had to have them fenced in. I got tired of putting the fence up and taking it down every year. Besides, the hollyhocks picked up some sort of disease and didn't look good any more. So they are all gone. I hope yours bloom wonderfully, and escape the attention of the local long-legged rats!
Hmm. I think I might have to bring some to you once they bloom, there's no need for a complete hollyhock drought in your realm. Thanks to all the dogs around my place, I have no deer issues, and with the goats not in residence anymore, a lot of my flowers actually make it to blooming stage. We shall see lol!
I didn't know you could grow drinks in glass containers. That's impressive!
Yep, once you advance to Applied Homesteading Level Alpha-Zeta 220 you get special alchemical botany knowledge!
Thanks!😁
I love hollyhocks and do you know, I don't have one in this house? None. I did a big planting ten days ago, and we had no winter whatsoever again... and after having the Tuesday being in the 70-80 range for weeks and weeks and weeks, it snowed. Snowed. Yes. snowed. It cleared up before it hit the ground, almost. Then three days later, we had three days of freezing temps. almost all day.
What?
It did this to my just blooming cherry tree. :( Killed off a lot of plants that were just coming up. Perennials, so they'll be back.
Le sigh.
Starting again. Again.
Your garden is enviable! ❤️
OH NO! I always get a little squirrely when it's unseasonably warm for precisely that reason, there always seems to be ah ha late snow storm or freeze that wipes out a bunch of beautiful blooms and blossoms. Ugh!
But like you said, they'll be back Well, at least the perennials....
I wish I could just give you a Hollyhock, they are so much fun to take like 300 pictures of, and you take the most beautiful plant pics, I know you'd get the best shots.
Because this is such an awesome post, here is a BBH Tip for you.
. Keep up the fantastic work
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