The Great Adventure Begins!

Okay so I did my first plantings today (okay I actually planted my Lemon Balm on Sunday but it was well established in a pot so it's nothing to write home about). I planted my first radish seedlings today (just 3) and I will continue plant them as the sprout because technically you should plant them in the ground to avoid damaging the main root but I am experimenting with sprouting them in my germination kit and planting them as soon as they break ground. I also planted a tomato plant. It probably won't survive any cold snaps (tomato's are not very cold hardy) but I'm not happy with it because I started it way too early before I had my germination kit, and it got way too tall and thin (that's what happens to plants apparently when they don't get enough light). So if it stays warm and it survives, cool. If not, well it was not meant to be.

So what's this germination kit I'm talking about? It looks like this:

Now this may not look like much, but it's a start and when I buy 2 more lamps for the bottom 2 racks, I will be able to start 296 seedlings at a time from this tiny little setup.

The mini-greenhouse cost me $32 with tax.  There are two square 40mm x 25 Jiffy greenhouses ($20) and one long 35mm x 24 Jiffy greenhouse ($8) on each shelf. I also bought two 2 foot full spectrum T5 fluorescent lightsfor $25 each. So total my set up (once I buy my two lower lights) will cost just under $250. Now as I said, this will start 296 seedlings at a time so that's not bad (under a dollar per seedling). The peat pellets cost roughly 13 cents each and each bulb consumes 24 watts. So once you get the gear, starting seeds will be CHEAP each subsequent year.

So here is a little picture of the set up. You can see the two square mini-greenhouses in the front and the longer one behind. Even though the rack is technically a greenhouse itself, I choose to buy the mini-greenhouses instead of open trays to allow me to plant/water/thin one set of seedlings without disturbing the temperature and humidity of another. Don't know if that's necessary but hey, never hurts to be careful. Oh this whole set up is in my condo right next to my balcony door, so that's why I was worried about temperature.

Now I think my lights are too far away from the greenhouses because as you can see in this picture, my seedlings are really long and spindly. They were about one foot away from the surface of the peat, but looks like they should have been closer. Right now my lights are fixed in place, but I'm going to modify them this weekend to be adjustable up and down to hopefully avoid this in the future.

Alright already, so what am I planting already? Well, since I'm worried about the cold I'm planting things that will hopefully take temperatures near freezing. I have already started radishes, broccoli, asian mustard, onion, spinach, parsnip, a lettuce mix and Rocket (Wild Grazia). I will be planting the radishes and parsnips as soon as they break ground to avoid damaging the tap root. I have yet to start my Snow wind sugar peas, sputnik Arugula and Parmex Carrots. Also, I bought a $10 thermometer/hygrometer with a hi/low memory and put it in the hoophouse near the seedlings. I'm going to track and post the hi/low temps as often as I can to see what my seedlings are going through. Another little experiment is I planted a wack of swiss chard just outside my raise bed to see what happens to seeds that aren't in the hoophouse. Now swiss chard is supposed to be one of the most hardy lettuce like plants so we'll see what happens.