The 2021 Garden has begun!

Scabious tall red

I am trying a few new things this year to have a more successful garden (I hope). First, and most exciting, I have increased my grow-lights supply exponentially. I had just purchased a new 2-foot grow light at Veseys, for an exorbitant amount (over $60 with taxes), and got it set up on one of my metal IKEA "Hyllis" shelving units. This made my total number of grow lights 7, with two I had borrowed from my sister. 

Then I got the Princess Auto flyer. They have 'shop lights', LEDs, and they were going on sale for $38.00 for two, four-foot ones. How to best take advantage of this? My metal shelves are about 2 foot by 9 inches - and I only have three. So...I set 2 of them up parallel to each other, about three feet apart, and put miscellaneous bits of wood and rigid insulation between them (temporarily) to make shelves.  I bought three packages of the lights, and now have four of them set up over the new enlarged shelves. Except for the top one, which is screwed into the ceiling joists, I am still able to use magnets (magnetic hooks, also from PA) to suspend the other three lights from the metal shelves. When we are able to travel again, I plan to set up another, similar, unit at right angles to this one (this is all set up in the basement where we were storing our firewood, most of which is gone by now). Maybe not for this year, but certainly for next year. PA is amazing.

PA shop lights and lettuce-box petri dishes 

  

Another innovation is using the "petri dish" method of seed-starting...but I'm not bothering with the tiny little condiment serving-sized plastic dishes with a few seeds in each. No sir. I am using these big plastic boxes that salad leaves come in, with a wet paper towel in the bottom. The sweet peas I did this way were great - once they germinate (and they do so VERY quickly) it is really easy to pluck them up and pop them into seed trays, nice deep ones from MacKenzie's seeds, and this way every cell has a plant - rather than planting the soaked seed into the soil and having gaps because some of them didn't germinate. 

This was so successful I have - I think - 10 trays with 20 or 21 cells in each (I just couldn't stop). I have used this method for tiny seeds as well...I put some campanula medium seed I had saved from my own plants into a lettuce box, and when they germinated, I transplanted them into cells - five in each because they were so tiny. I used toothpicks to pick them up and pop them in. They just had seed leaves when I did that but they now have true leaves. (They are biennials so they will spend a year growing on in the cutting garden. I've had a lot of success with doing this with biennials now - particularly with echinaceas and aquilegias.)

Campanula medium under lights

And they are under the new lights so I expect some major flourishing very quickly. The Method worked with a package of Johnny's Galahad tomato seed (15 seeds, 13 plants now pricked out into cells) so I am doing another tomato variety now. The hot peppers I sowed conventionally are just now raising their heads from the soil, and I have 8 so far - no idea if there will be more or not. The Method removes the mystery!

The sprouted sweet peas move on from the basement 'hothouse' to the frost-free garage, which is where I installed the other two PA lights. above a big old corner shelf unit rescued when we had our kitchen cupboards rebuilt. (Another wonderful thing about the lights is that they can be ganged together - up to 8 of them - which means that I just need one plug for each setup.) The sweet peas need warmth to germinate but prefer cold for growing on, so this is working well for me - I can now use the warm

Sweet peas in the cold under lights       

spots for more tender things. I have done a bit of winter-sowing as well, the usual flowers for the cutting garden mainly. We'll see what comes of them. It has been a way for me to test germination and seed viability, but now I think that the petri dish method is better for that. Only problem is that I would have to plant them indoors using this method, and can't have them outdoors taking care of themselves. Perhaps if I had started all this sooner... who says there's no gardening in winter??

The third innovation is with carrots - I have long whined and complained about the fact that I can't seem to get carrots to germinate. And fellow gardeners look smug and say nothing. But with covid-induced time on my hands I have found the answer on the You Tube. Other gardeners, too, have problems with this!! And the solution I am planning to try is: soak the seeds in lots of water for 5 days or so, until they start to sprout (I am already good at this) and then put them in a zippy bag with a cornstarch paste (which keeps them hydrated), cut a tiny hole in the corner and squit them into wetted rows in the garden. Their problem is they need steady moisture when germinating, and all of these things should help. I may invest in soaker hose as well.  Carrots!

All this seed-starting and so on doesn't make for a very pretty post, but I myself am very excited. Little green leaves are very hope-filled. And we all need that right now.