Slow Seeding
Sunday, April 24, 2011 at 11:19PM 
Tomato seedlings in their new containers!Getting my garden going this year has been slow going. But, I've probably said that every year. The cold weather has slowed the growth of everything I planted outside, with radishes and peas in the lead, but not by a lot. I'm still waiting for lavender, shallots, and garlic chives to emerge, and after 3 weeks, I'm finally seeing signs of the broccoli and Brussels sprouts emerging. This week's warm weather has finally coaxed second leaves from my lupine and red mustard, but nothing, save micro greens, is edible yet. Today, right before a stretch of rain storms, and with the promise of 60s weather all week, I planted the rest of my seeds: quinoa, Trombincino summer squash, Long Island cheese pumpkins, and string beans. It may be a touch early for these guys, but I figured I'd experiment and see what happens. I can always re-seed, right?
Indoors, I have a motley collection of containers housing my cold-intolerant seedlings. The tomatoes have already grown too big for the starter tray, so the four strongest, which I intend to transplant to the garden, got their own makeshift pots made of whatever was in my recycle bin: yogurt containers, plastic cups, and plastic bottles cut in half. Washed out, they make the best plant pots!
My eggplants were taking their sweet time coming up. Even indoors, they were ridiculously cold sensitive and it took roughly 3 weeks for them to emerge. In frustration, I put six seedlings, nestled in a cardboard egg carton, in my warm boiler room. This cut down germination time by about a week and a half, but they ended up emerging about the same time the eggplant seedlings in the station did.
Also emerging in the station are a handful of sunflower seedlings, some already transplanted into the garden, and a very strange assortment of herbs. I seem to have mostly thyme, even where I didn't plant it. I have three strong basil seedlings of varying sizes, one undeterminable seedling which I think may be lemon balm, one parsley seedling, two spindly Brussels sprout seedlings I planted thinking my seedlings outside were never coming up, and on the lower shelf, a sweet potato with one (and only one) slip growing out of it.
Seedlings, mostly herbs, in various stages of growth.A note on growing sweet potatoes - they're about the easiest thing to start. You just stick a few toothpicks (or, in my case, kebab skewers) into the sides of a store-bought sweet potato (which is sometimes sold as a "yam" but is not a yam at all) and submerge one end in water. Roots sprout on the submerged end and slips (sprouts with leaves) grow out of the dry side. Once the slips mature, or grow a few leaves and look as though they can survive on their own, you can pinch them off and either place them in water to sprout roots of their own, or plant them directly. By the end of the year, you'll have a cluster of sweet potatoes growing at the root base.
I've begun acclimating my seedlings to the outdoors by moving their containers out during sunny days. In the next two weeks, depending on the weather of course, I'll probably transplant the strongest seedlings to their summer homes. In the mean time, I'm expecting to have full grown radishes in the next week or so! And hopefully some flowers will finally peek out of the ground. The warm front should coax the tiny seedlings out of their shell and into more recognizable plants. Can't wait!
Reader Comments (2)
Hi there, I'm a newbie gardener in Astoria - hopefully we run into each other sometime! I wanted to start peas ASAP and wondered if you recommend a shop light for them. A link in one of your older posts is broken, so I wanted to know what kind/where you bought your light setup. Thank you!
Hi there,
Peas can be diectly sewn as soon as you can work the soil. I planted mine last month and they're already 4 inches tall. As for a shop light, I bought my setup at Home Depot and you can check the blog's history under "Seed Starting" in the Entries By Category section to learn how I put mine together.