Cold Spell

The next few nights will be below freezing around here. I've put a wall-of-water around each plant. I just hope next week will be better.

Plants are set out

After all we've been through this spring, we finally have some great weather. Highs in the upper 70's. I put all of the plants out.

Site one: 1092 Martin, and 1354 Vogler as a backup.

Site two: 857 Christensen. This plant is looking real nice.

Site three: Two 604.5 Warren plants. Each of them is looking good, one of them is a "tri-cot".

Site four: 1185 Bortner, with 1367 Sundstrom as a backup.

Site five: 964 Wolf with a 125 Wolf backup.

Site six: 1290 Poirier and 1186 Bowles. One to survive.

Also, my daughter Elise is growing the 1016 Christensen.

The strategy to use one gallon pots that are cut in half and reassembled with duct tape has been great! I will use this again.

Three seed leaves on my 604

Here is something I haven't seen before. One of my 604 seeds has three seed leaves!

Click on the images to see a larger version.

Would you believe, more snow?

Well, it's not much, and not too abnormal, but we have some extremely light flakes flying around out there in the middle of the day. On April 24th.

The 1016 and the 1290 came up, as I predicted they would based on my "digging". I'm already transferring the earliest risers into one-gallon pots. This is going to be necessary because I can't even harden the plants off at this time. I think the plants will go out for real, between Monday and Friday next week. Wow, I still have so much work to do. Patch prep is done, but I need to get the coldframes finished. I have the material, I just need a block of time to get them built.

More on seeds...

I don't know why I have so much bad luck with seeds. About 70% of them come right up for me. But I do get a fair amount that send a short little "club root" out and then stop. Usually at this stage in the game I start digging, to find out what's going on. Here is the scoop:

1071 Christensen and 1040 Christensen -> club root. Classic case. I've re-potted the 1071 but the 1040 was a lost cause.

The 1290 Poirier and 1016 Christensen -> I think they are on their way. They're just slow to rise from the soil.

Ah, the 869.5 Calai. No action whatsoever. The seed hasn't opened at all. I put it back in the soil. It's an old seed, so maybe it will take some time.

I do monitor temps. It's always between 85 and 95. Slight moisture, perfect conditions (I think). Very high quality Fertilome potting soil, although maybe I should look into "seed starting mix".

In the meantime, I'm starting more backups. Some of the notable ones are the 1367 Sundstrom and the 1354 Vogler. Actually, those might become frontliners.

Why are the orange seeds always so slow?

As of this morning I have 8 of 13 up.

Up: Both 604 Warren, 125 and 964 Wolf, 857 Christensen, 1186 Bowles, 1185 Bortner, and 1092 Martin (Yes!!).

Not up: 1016, 1040, and 1071 C, 1290 Poirier, and 869.5 Calai.

So, I have two orange seeds up, the 857 and 1186. But the other five that are not up are the heart of the orange plans. What is odd to me is, every year it is like this! The no-color seeds come up quickly and easily, while the color seeds take their time and have spotty performance. Oh well, it's only day 3. More of them will come up. No need to panic yet.

The Calai is a year 2000 seed, so it might take some time.

The others... if they don't show by this time tomorrow, I have plenty of backups to try.

More up...

When I arrived home Monday night the 857 Christensen, 1186 Bowles, and one of the 604 Warren seeds were coming up. This means I can take these off the heat and put them under the light. I can now condense (barely) the two trays into one, so I have no trouble keeping all of the seeds warm.

964 Wolf pops!

The "blanket over the whole works" is working well. This morning, the 964 Wolf was already pushing up. This was just under two days in the pot, and 2.5 days since I filed and soaked.

Seeds in, and the season's first problem...

OK, well, 13 seeds are in their pots. Twelve for me considering my double-planting strategy, and one for Elise. Her's is the 1016 Christensen.

I was all set to go. Two trays of seeds with a heating mat for each. Only now, late Saturday night, I discover that one of the heating mats isn't working anymore. The one that is still working is a heating mat that isn't designed for seeds... but it's good in that I can crank the heat up on it and try to get it to heat both trays. At the moment the one heat mat is supplying heat to two trays, each with a portion of their surface touching the mat. I threw a blanket over the whole works to try to preserve heat until I can come up with a better plan. It's either that or make an 11:00pm run to WalMart, and I'm too tired for that right now.

I hope I don't wake up in the middle of the night in a panic over my seeds...

Season starts today... well, maybe tomorrow

Looking outside, this just ain't spring yet. But looking at the calendar, based on a trip I need to take, I think I'll go ahead and file and soak seeds tonight, and put them on the heat tomorrow. That should put me "all up" on the 23rd, Wednesday. Transfer to one-gallon pots a week from today, and out to the patch sometime during the week of Monday April 28th to May 2nd. Nope, it's not too early!

My nine year old, Elise, insists that she is growing one "all by herself" this year. Hmm... I need to find a spot for it!

Can't control the weather...

Still cold here. It snowed late last September on weighoff day, and we haven't had any real warming since. The grass is still brown. Normally I would be mowing by now. My tomatoes should have gone out a week or more ago. Now after investing many weeks in them, they're getting leggy.... We can't even put them out to harden them off!! Well we could, but going from a 70 degree house to below 40 outside is pretty hard on them. Now I don't know if these will work or if we'll need to start buying tomato plants. Sigh.

Right now the prediction is for above average temps on Saturday.

The "no-hoop" house

Click on the image for a larger version.

This is what I'm planning to build this year. It worked for my neighbors last year, and that's quite a big deal considering the wind we get. I need six of them............. don't know if I'll get them all done, but I will build as many as I can.

869.5 Calai added to the lineup

I have acquired a veteran free agent to bolster this year's lineup, an 869.5 Calai. THIS IS NOT AN APRIL FOOLS JOKE. ;-)

A generous grower friend had one and decided that it didn't fit into his plans, so I'm making room for it. I can already envision a cross between it and the 1071 Christensen, which is (869.5 Calai X Self). Then if I could only grow that out to 4 digits or more, people might want to have an inbred true orange seed for their collections...

Slow warming trend this week. Well, it should warm up to about "normal" by the weekend.