#seed starting

Getting the timing right is one of the most important parts of growing plants from seed. Starting too early can result in overgrown seedlings, while starting too late may leave plants without enough time to mature during the outdoor growing season.

Gardeners can make planning easier by using their local last-frost date and checking the recommended indoor-starting period for each crop.

A month-by-month seed-starting calendar provides a simple way to organize your planting schedule and prepare seedlings for transplanting.

Read the full guide at Isle of Seeds

A 12pk of Chinese broccoli, a 6pk of lettuce, and two seed snails of beets. I'm going to do an additional 6pk of lettuce weekly to stagger the harvest. Plus I'll get at least a 6pk each of kale and spinach going in a week or so to eventually plant into bucket planters in the cold frame for the fall/winter. The forecast is for a mild winter so I'm going to load up the cold frames as much as I can.

Picked apart the Black Krim and White Tomesol seedlings and repotted them one to a cell, giving me 12 potential seedlings to work with each. The Carbon variety seems to be just sending up one seedling per cell so I won't have to worry about repotting those. Got a spot all prepared in the enclosed raised bed for a few seedlings of each once they're transplanting size.

An addition to the saga of pests eating my seedlings this year—flea beetles are converting the Pearly Pink cherry tomato transplants into lace. I puffed some diatomaceous earth over them, so hopefully they'll recover. I do have one seedling leftover so I'll probably just replace the worst affected one. (The white grate is to keep critters from digging up the seedlings before they establish—usually looking for worms in the disturbed soil)

Critters have also been eating all the leaves off of the sweet potatoes in the raised bed in the back, leaving just vines of petioles behind. This is of course the bed of sweet potatoes that I was growing for eating—they're leaving the vines I have for decoration completely alone. Sigh.

Pole beans are finally blooming. The second round of bush beans is almost ready to do so too. Plus I've gathered enough seed from the early planting of French filet bush beans for the spring planting next year and they're still going—think I'll continue to collect seed and maybe plant double next year.

Collected seed from the Pink Flamingo celosia. The flowers start as a small tuft that gradually elongates upwards so seeds set on the bottom while the plant is still flowering at the top.

To collect the seed, I held the flower over a bowl and rubbed the bottom to dislodge the seeds. Basically it looked like I was jacking off my plants. I am the entertainment for my block, I swear.

Volunteer moss rose popped up in the railing planter. I saved a bunch of discarded moss rose plants from the green waste dumpsters last summer and I wasn't able to collect any seed, but I guess some made it into the potting soil. Love this color. The darker part in the center is a bar of deep orange-red, not a shadow.

The lettuce that I had let go to seed was pretty thoroughly seedy, so I cut off the lot to dry a bit before processing and gave the rest of the plants to the chickens.

I had 11 cells of cucumber seedlings to get transplanted—5 of the unnamed pickling variety that I want to get seed from and 6 random unknown cucumbers from seed loose in the box.

The pickling variety went into the enclosed raised bed (replacing the Orange Icicle tomatoes) in the back, well away from all the other cucumbers.

Three of the unknown cucumbers went into the earthbox where I just removed the lettuce. And the remaining three went into the porch container planters (with pvc trellis and olla), one per container—I will trim the leaves off the stems of the tomato plants currently occupying to about 3 feet up to allow sunlight and air flow.

I got all of the Pearly Pink tomato seedlings picked apart and potted up separately, the extras tossed into the compost tumbler. Not sure what I'll do with 18 plants of this one variety, but it's a cherry-type so maybe other people would like a free mid-season replacement. Especially since they're forecasting an exceptionally mild winter here (thanks El Niño) so the season might be extended.

The Jersey Giant tomato seeds only produced 5 seedlings that are struggling and the two other varieties didn't come up at all. I resowed the White Tomesol, but started germinating two other varieties. Here you can see the Black Krim seed was still viable, so I started six cells of it. The Carbon seed looks like it is on the cusp of germination, so it may get sown tomorrow in its own six pack.

Goal for this weekend is to remove all the stuff I stored under the indoor growing lights in preparation for starting the seeds for fall crops at the end of the month. Right now just Chinese broccoli and a beet snail because I have no cabbage seed *sigh*

I also did a thorough harvest of tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers, and flower seeds. The Bright Lights cosmos had a number of seed heads formed so I grabbed fresh seed. I mostly don't bother winnowing off the petals...I tend to get so much seed by the end of the season that it needs to be stored in a recycled food tub anyway. Also got more petunia and snapdragon seeds; the calendula should be ready shortly.

Fucking wildlife took a chunk out of one of the younger squashes. So that means I'm going to have to figure out a way to protect the rest. Have to research if I can just slide some pantyhose over them or if I have to do some sort of cage. Another heat wave is due to hit Monday, so I need to get moving on it.

But also look at my two itty-bitty watermelons that I hand-pollinated into being! That's probably enough melons for this vine given that it's a bush-type. As long as one of them makes it to ripen I'll be happy. Even better to let the second overripen a bit to collect seeds (and feed the chickens). I'm allergic to melons but I can usually get away with a few bites a year and I save it for watermelon. Especially homegrown watermelon.

Bonus flower:

Update on the assortment of seedlings: I can definitely see sunflowers, morning glories, cosmos, marigolds, four o’clocks, tithonia(?), but that’s all I got. Now, will the marigolds be small or two feet tall? Who knows ✨