In late February (a little over a month ago) I posted about my seed starting, both inside the greenhouse and outside in plastic storage bins. You can read about that
here. I figured it was time for a progress report.
I've managed to pot up many of the seedlings that sprouted in the greenhouse, although I'm running out of room, as well as pots. I still haven't sowed all I bought.
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| All my blue Echinops have been potted up and most are thriving |
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| Since my last post I sowed 'New Zealand Purple' Castor Bean and they are shooting up like mad |
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| Cardoons took their sweet time germinating, but I finally have some good size seedlings potted on |
The huge amount of Lupine 'My Castle,' Dahlia 'Black Beauty,' and Erysimum 'Blood Red' that I sowed and potted on were taking up too much shelf space so I moved them into storage bins with transpiration holes drilled into them, and have set them outside for hardening off. On hot, sunny days I'll take the lids off and let them get some fresh air.
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| Please ignore the horribly weedy gravel |
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| Lupine 'My Castle' |
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| Erysimum 'Blood Red' |
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| Dahlia 'Black Beauty,' which would be taller but I pinched them back a couple of days ago to encourage side shoots, and I'm actually starting to wonder if they need slightly larger pots |
So, let's take a look inside the storage bins to see if there is any germination going on inside. These seeds have been sowed without any heat mats or lights, just using whatever heat is generated by being in the enclosed space of the translucent storage bin on the south side of the greenhouse on sunny days.
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| There are holes drilled in the lids to let air out and water in. You can see there is lots of condensation on the inside of the lid |
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| Hmmm..not a lot of sprouting here |
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| A few Butterflyweed babies |
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| Some Knautia 'Mars Midget' but they have true leaves |
So, that was a bit disappointing. What will we find in the next one?
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| Much better! |
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| Rumex sanguineus aka bloody dock |
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| Scabiosa 'Black Knight' |
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| Eryngium 'Blue Glitter' |
And the next?
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| Lots of babies! |
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| Dianthus 'Black Adder' -- a Sweet William with a dark purple/black flower like 'Sooty' |
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| Oodles of Verbascum 'Shades of Summer' |
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| Coreopsis 'Mahogany Midget' |
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| Erysimum 'Blood Red' |
The next bin has quite a lot of sprouts too.
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| Ruby Swiss Chard |
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| Salvia nemorosa 'Violet Blue' |
Let's keep going.
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| Plenty more sprouts |
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| Centaurea cyanus 'Black Boy' |
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| Ruby Red Orach |
And one final look.
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| Sprouts in every pot |
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| More Salvia nemorosa than I know what to do with -- actually I plan to fill a drought-tolerant bed with it |
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| Some Shasta 'Crazy Daisy' |
That's my seed report for March. It's only been a month since I sowed most of those seeds, some even sooner, and they've been outside in the cold for that entire time. We did have some sunny days recently, but for a few weeks in February we had some nasty, snowy, cold, unseasonal (for us) weather. Some of those seedlings have true leaves, and you may have noticed there is no legginess on most of those sprouts as well.
I'm pretty happy with them. I can't wait to get them in the ground.
