Starting more seeds inside
I'm thrilled to be able to say that my simple bleach-soak of the seed-starting flats
seems to have been sufficient to eliminate damping off. Just
about every seed sprouted, and many of the seedlings are starting to put
out their first new leaves. They're a bit leggy, though, so I had
Mark build the youngsters a new shelf near the bottom of the
south-facing windows for more constant lighting over the next month or
so before they hit the garden.
That
left my warm shelf near the wood stove open and ready for the next
round of seedlings --- broccoli and cabbage. Since I didn't plan
ahead and preheat my stump dirt this time around, I sifted out the
frozen chunks, filled the trays, and heated the potting soil the quick
way on top of two firebricks on a damped-down stove. I'll let the
chunks of soil I removed thaw and then will sift again to remove the
nutshells and pieces of wood, which seem to be more numerous in this
stump dirt than the debris has been in previous years. Then the
rest of the stump dirt will go toward the next set of seedlings ---
tomatoes and peppers.
I try not to start too much indoors, so most of the plants we're sprouting here are backups for others that will soon be started under quick hoops.
But after a cold winter, the ground will stay cold for quite a while,
which means it's worth giving extra attention to our indoors starts so
we can have a normal first harvest. Our winter stores are getting a
bit slim and we're looking forward to the first new lettuce and other
food from the 2014 garden.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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I thought I would share some stuff I figured out this year. When I was looking through my old photos from previous garden seasons I found my seedlings the first year looked amazing. At that time I started them in 100% sifted compost. The seed starting mix dries out so fast and has to be watered almost daily (and having a busy week and forgetting to water them can be very detrimental to the seedlings early in their lives.) The compost doesn't drain as well but it also holds moisture better. Here's a link to a slightly out of focus photo I took.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/20378685@N00/12736095243/