seed starting – Page 2

Well, I harvested some radishes early this month and things escalated from there! A quick summary of what’s going on these days.

Preseason prep

The seed starting grow house is officially closed for the season!

This year I had no damping off issues like last year, I think in part because I treated all of my potting soil with an organic biofungicide (Bionide Revitalize Biofungicide). I bought it to treat powdery mildew on my squashy plants, but it works to pretreat soil for other fungus too. I also ran a fan regularly to keep air moving.

I grew the following from seeds started indoors or winter sown this year:

Basil (tulsi, Thai basil), rosemary, parsley, mint
Green onions, shallots, leeks
Nasturtiums, marigolds, zinnias (all mostly died mysteriously after transplanting), coreopsis, calendula, chamomile
Luffa, Honeynut, butternut
Cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts
Peppers (poblano, biquinho)
Tomatoes (currant, cherry, pink ping pong, San marzano Roma)
Echinacea, poppies (winter sown)

Plot progress

In just the last 20 days a lot has happened in the plot!

The tunnel went nuts! Radishes, arugula, and spinach are all basically done (gone to seed). Arugula got flea beetles. They’re staying in as trap crops/ ground cover to keep some shade and moisture in for the remaining parsnips, beets, and carrots. Cabbage and broccoli are heavily competing for space. I had to give broccoli a trim to back off. Obviously planted them too closely.
Direct sown seeds – snap peas, Lima beans, string beans, zucchini, squash, luffa, and cucumbers all woke up eventually. I think this year I started the winter squash too late! Last year was too early. Next year, just right!
OH HAIL NO! We got a bad hail storm as late as last week (June 20th)! Luckily the plot suffered minimal damage but it could have been a blood bath.
Surprises – some volunteer flowers that I thought were going to be cosmos are rocket larkspur (striking purple flowers that the bees like). My inherited rhubarb went downhill and is very sad, and inherited asparagus got a few spears. Dill. Is. Everywhere.
Transplants are doing ok – two experimental sweet potato plants (started from slips) look quite sad, transplanted winter squash (from seed) looks pretty sad, probably got waterlogged, cabbage and broccoli (from seed) are crushing, poblano and biquinho peppers (from seed) look fine, nasturtiums (from seed) got some blossoms, tomatoes (from seed) look happy too. Last year nasturtiums didn’t do well for me.

Yard gard

I have a decent yard garden going on this year, somewhat in part because I started too many darn plants and even after giving away about half, still had some left. I’ve planted up my greenstalk vertical planter full this year and nasturtiums are absolutely taking over and thriving.