| Flowerfreak Posted on Wednesday, March 12, 2008 - 03:17 pm: |   |
Well after seeing your success with the cups, I think I am going to give them a try again. Yes, that is much cheaper.
Huh, that is very interesting. Maybe I'll try to grow some this year still (like I need to grown more things this year).
I tried to grow petunias 2 years ago, but no luck. I think I had a couple sprout, but no survivors. Petunias are one of my favorites
(ok, so maybe I have 100 favorites, lol).
LOL, I am the same way. Just yesterday I was wondering what I was going to do with some of mine that need to be thinned out b/c I hate doing that also. I was tempted to just leave them & see what happened.
Thanks for the info  |
| Seil Posted on Monday, March 17, 2008 - 07:27 pm: | |
I'm blue. The weather's still lousy. My appliances are weirding out on me and I had a major seedling disaster today.
We had to start potting up some of the plants in the seedling trays on Saturday because they were getting so large. We ran out of soil quickly. So we went to Lowes for more. I was just going to buy a couple more of the small bags inside the store but dear brother decided we should just get one of the big bags outside. Well of course it was frozen solid from being outside all winter probably. But he managed to peel one loose and we brought it home. He took it down to the basement to thaw. In my laundry room. Well thaw it did and it created a wonderful muddy river across the floor to the drain too! So today I decided to deal with it after I watered all the seedlings. I took me over an hour to clean the mess up and get things straightened out. So I was tired and dirty and went up stairs to clean up and rest a bit. I wasn't up there 5 minutes when I hear a huge crash. I go down to investigate with great fear. Sure enough the flower seedling tray on the top shelf had fallen off the shelf and on it's way down took out the rose seedling tray and they both landed upside down on the corn. I'm sooo bummed. I lost all of the flower seedlings in the tray, 5 out of 8 rose seedlings in that tray and a good dozen of the corn seedlings. And I had to clean up another muddy mess! Another hour or more later when I'd finished I thought about starting a new tray of flower seeds but was too tired and said to heck with it and went up stairs for a nap! I can't think about that right now. I'll think about it tomorrow. |
| Jak3 Posted on Tuesday, March 18, 2008 - 07:39 pm: | |
What a bummer Seil! I recall a disaster from my greenhouse days when seedling flats ended up on the floor - I forget the details - probably repressed them - so if it's any consolation you will probably just put this out of your mind soon. I am planting seeds now but the snow banks are still higher than my head. I sure hope we get spring sometime....
Good luck with the rose seedlings - I have never heard of anyone here starting them from seed. |
| Seil Posted on Monday, March 24, 2008 - 04:38 pm: | |
Thanks for the sympathy, Jak. If you're interested in doing rose seeds I've explained it all somewhere in this journal or just email me and I'll tell you how to do it. It's a lot of fun.
I did replant that whole flat with flower seeds on Wednesday and I already have some new sprouts coming up. As for the rest of the jungle...YIKES! It's getting huge. I don't know what I was thinking when I planted all this stuff so soon and I don't know what I'm going to do with it all to keep it going until I can plant. Especially now since it doesn't seem to ever want to be spring around here. I had a houseful of company over the holiday weekend and didn't get anything else potted up so I have a lot to do down there and pronto. Supposed to snow again tomorrow so that will be a good day to do it. |
| Seil Posted on Tuesday, March 25, 2008 - 06:48 pm: | |
SEEDLINGS! Everywhere! I potted up 60 seedlings today and I'm no where near done. I did all the peas, cabbage, African Daisy, English Daisy, Carnation, Columbine and Dahlias, plus 3 more roses. The beans are going berzerkers. Alan thinks they may be getting flowers! I may have to pick beans before I can plant them out. And there are still 2 more flats. One of them needs potting right away. That's the tomato and pepper tray and the other is the flat of flowers that I had to replant because it fell off the shelf. Those are all starting to sprout too but aren't ready for pots yet. I need more space and more lights and who knows if I'll have enough cups and soil.
These are the ones I potted up today.
I have 20 rose seedlings now.
These are my humongus beans along with corn and cukes and pumpkins plus a few maters.
These are the begonias, a couple dahlias and of course more corn.
My nasturtiums are looking scraggly and I lost a couple. I think I need to move them to a better spot.
And this is the flat I need to pot right away. All tomato and pepper plants. I think I finally have a few green peppers coming up. Strange that the red, yellow and orange peppers germinated right away and the green ones have taken weeks to germinate.
I'm going to try and pot these up tomorrow and then I'm going to have to do some major rearranging to get it all in under the lights. |
Eeek, what date do you usually get to plant out? You are going to be disentangling seedlings in your dreams. LOL! |
| Seil Posted on Wednesday, March 26, 2008 - 11:46 am: | |
That's the problem, DJ. I usually don't plant out until May 1st and this year is warming up so slow who knows when I'll be able to plant. If I can keep them going that long I'll have some really good size plants to start with though! |
That doesn't seem so bad. I don't plant most things until May 23rd, so I thought you were maybe in the same boat, except that your plants were about to throw you overboard. LOL. Maybe it'll be like when I lived down south. Cold weather, then three days of spring, and then BOOM! SUMMER. You could be planting right on time.  |
| Seil Posted on Thursday, March 27, 2008 - 07:29 pm: | |
I got that flat of tomato and pepper seedlings potted up today. I'm out of cups now so I'll have to get more before the replanted flat of flowers needs potting. I tried to count them all up but there are so many I kept losing track. All I know is LOTS! I checked on the two bareroot roses that I bought and stuck in the cold cellar and they have both broken dormancy and have several green shoots on them so I took those out and put them under the lights too. I will have to pot them up too. I need a bigger basement! (or a greenhouse) |
| Jak3 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 08:57 am: | |
WAH!! I miss my greenhouse!! But I am being less prolific in the planting because I have to do this in the house, so I don;t have so much to give away or toss....I have also restrained myself from planting too early - last year I started my seeds on Feb, 15 and had to repot the tomatoes three times. They had flowers and little green fruit on them by the time I got them outside! Last fall my DH and DS surprised me by installing a leftover window in my garden shed. It is a big window and slides open and is screened. It will put some shelves there and harden off my plants out there this year. I will leave my kitchen a little freer than last year - it looked like a jungle. Off to check my seedlings.... |
| Jak3 Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 09:05 am: | |
All four kinds of tomatoes are up. All eight pots of alyssum are up. Both kinds of basil are up. Two Hagley Hybrids clems are up. No sign of the celery, parsley, rosemary, chives, pumpkins or cukes. yet. No sighn of the seeds I took from a beautiful unknown plant on the outdoor Patio of the Fallbrooke restaurant or from the garden of the abandonned stone house my DD was thinking of buying. Nelly Moser clem and Japanese lilac haven't sprout yet either, but the Hagley Hybrids were sown in Feb. 2007 and I had given up on them. I only seeded last Wednesday, So I thinks things are going well after a week. Patience is not my thing,,,,, |
| Seil Posted on Friday, March 28, 2008 - 04:28 pm: | |
A lesson I need to learn, Julie. I started mine around 2/15 also and look what I got! Next year someone please restrain me!!! Oh well it does keep me busy.
Sounds like your seeds are doing really well. Do you have a journal? I'd love to follow how all your seeds are doing. |
| Seil Posted on Monday, March 31, 2008 - 06:37 pm: | |
I walked out in the garden today. It was in the 50s but raining off and on. I pulled back the mulch in some places to see what's going on under there. There are lots of things coming up but it's just too wet to work out there to uncover them.
I found some crocus, tulips and daffs up of course but the bleeding heart is starting to come up too as well as the peonies and iris. The mums seem to have some green at the base too. Everything is such a wet mess though. I hope to get out late this week to unearth things.
I wanted to check on my rose seedlings that are dug in and buried in mulch but when I tried to pull the mulch back it was too deep and I couldn't find anything. I hope I didn't just lose them altogether. Looking at the potted roses I can definitely see signs of growth now. That's good! Most of it may have to be pruned off but at least it tells me that they are alive. |
| Seil Posted on Wednesday, April 02, 2008 - 09:36 pm: | |
Yippee! I started spring cleaning the beds today. It felt good to finally be outside in the garden. I worked for about five hours and cleared the mulch off all the spring bulbs that were trying to come up through it. I tried not to disturb the roses at all. Too early to uncover them yet. I'm fearful of what happened last year and don't want to chance losing a bunch to a late frost. I'm going to have to uncover them soon though. They're all starting to grow already.
Bed before starting
Bed after cleaning
Seedling bed
Roses starting to grow
 |
| Flowerfreak Posted on Thursday, April 03, 2008 - 09:11 am: | |
Looks good Seil! Yes, doesn't it feel so good to be able to get outside to do spring cleaning?! I have been doing a lot of that myself this past week :) |
| Seil Posted on Friday, April 04, 2008 - 03:56 pm: | |
Wet outside today so I finished potting up seedlings in the basement. There are no more seeds in flats. I can not plant a single thing more! I am totally out of room down there. I hope at least some of it lives to be planted out. Now I'm trying to figure out the logistics of hardening all of them off. There are around a couple hundred cups down there and I can't imagine how I'm going to carry all of those up and down the steps every day to harden them off. It should be interesting. I may put down a plastic sheet in the living room and just put them in there at night. I really don't think I can do all those steps every day. It might be good aerobic exercise though. If I don't have a heart attack doing it. |
| Seil Posted on Saturday, April 05, 2008 - 07:47 pm: | |
Oh, I'm gonna ache again!
Alan offered to help me un-bury the rose pots today. HALLELUJAH! That was an offer I couldn't pass up. I really hadn't planned on doing it this early but I've learned from past experience that when he offers to do something if you say no you had something else planned, he'll never offer again and you'll be stuck doing it yourself. So now when he says he wants to do something I drop whatever I have planned and take him up on it pronto. I can always reschedule what I wanted to do that day. Anyway, un-bury we did and a huge job it was, with a huge mess to clean up afterwards but well worth it and I'm glad it's done and I didn't have to do it alone.
Most of them look to be in good shape. The minis in the baskets are best because they were completely buried in leaves. Except of one, Uncle Joe, the rest have some green cane and some even have a few buds swelling. I didn't uncover the ones in the ground yet. I will wait with those to be more sure of the weather. Al already knows that if it looks like we're going to get a freeze his tractor and other toys are out of the shed to make room for the roses until all danger is gone.
I had my first blooms of the season today too.
 |
| Seil Posted on Sunday, April 06, 2008 - 09:09 pm: | |
I did a first prune on all the pot roses today. Uncle Joe is definitely dead. A few others are iffy, Just Joey, Oregold and Snowfire. The rest looked really good and were green almost to the tips. I think it may be a very good rose year! |
| Seil Posted on Tuesday, April 08, 2008 - 03:59 pm: | |
My first order of roses came today! Yippee! They're from Regan's in CA and I had I gift certificate so they were a good bargain too. I got two that I've been wanting for a long time and couldn't find anywhere around here (they're only available at places like Wal-Mart and such and ours has never gotten them in), Hollywood Star and Strawberry Romance. Then to round out the order and get the extra discount I added Pope John Paul II. They are soaking in buckets now waiting to get potted up. |
| Yasmeenjohl Posted on Wednesday, April 09, 2008 - 05:03 am: | |
I jus looked up Strawberry Romance on google.. Nw i thnk i need it too!! |
