Moving Day

Alpine Strawberries Day 37

Today marks the day that ALL of my seedlings have been moved from 1" x 1" egg crates to 4" x 4" slightly bigger homes. I watered the soil well and used a fork to lift up and move the plant. Moving the alpine strawberries was particularly tricky as the soil kept breaking apart. I was very disappointed at by the root system that these strawberries had, which was quite weak. These seedlings are 37 days old and I would have thought the plants would be much stronger by now. Nonetheless, everyone seems to have made it through the move.

Sweetie Romaine

One of the more impressive vegetables has been the Renee's Garden Sweetie Romaine lettuce. The germination rate was high and fast. Unfortunantley quite a few of the seedlings outgrew their egg crate home a bit too fast and perished before I had the chance to replant. This plant is kind of funny as the stem cannot support the leaves too well. To prevent the leaves from falling to the ground, I created a little "popsicle stick fence" to keep the leaves upright. I've looked into this problem online and have not heard of anyone else seeing this.

Growing Up

  

Cucumber Roots

Post-Transplant

All of my plants seem to be making progress. I spent today moving plants into large containers. The blueberry and raspberry plants were moved from 1 gallon containers to 7 gallon containers. The grape plant was finally planted in a 1 gallon container (for now). I moved many of the cucumber and tomato plants from their tiny 1 square inch egg carton cubby into more roomy 4 inch pots. I was very pleasentley surprised to see the complex root systems that my cucumbers had already set up. My sweet romaine seems to be growing but looks quite odd.

I will be needing to transplant my strawberry seedlings within the next couple of days, but I am glad to see that true leaves (although tiny) have developed. While outdoors today, I cleaned up the dried up remains from last last years harvest. I pulled the tomato plants out by the root and will plant tomatos in the same pots this year. I've read that tomatos do like to be planted in the same spot year after year. I cut back the dried up grass-like foliage from last year's alpine strawberry plant and found that new strawberry seedlings were growing in there. It is kind of incredible that the new seedlings are growing outside in the cold weather when my Renee's Garden Alpine Strawberries have been so fussy.

Alpine Strawberries

I also decided to dable with flowers a bit. I bough some bleeding heart bare root in the store. Though, I am not sure if I planted these correctley. Keeping my fingers crossed for now.

Garden Center and More



Pansy's



I went to Mahoney' Garden Center in Winchester, MA yesterday and it's the most wonderful place. I was very impressed by their huge green house and the happy seedlings and plants inside. Everything looked so healthy, especially compared to the Home Depot's and Lowe's stores. They even stocked botanical interest seeds, which right now is my favorite brand. They had a big selection of happy pansy's and I gladly bought some orange & purple ones. I think these are just sooo pretty!

Blueberry & Raspberry

I had been considering growing raspberries, but did not want to mail order a plant in fear of getting a weak one. So I decided to purchase one at the garden center and also got a blueberry bush. These both look very healthy and should bear fruit this summer. I was tempted to buy alpine strawberry seedlings because I have not seen much growth on my own. Meanwhile the strawberry seedlings at Mahoney's already had little berries. I decided to hold off on these and give my own a chance.

Since my last post, I figured out that my seedlings were not getting enough light so I put them under a strong white light source. Sure enough, I am now starting to see the beggining of my true-leaves. Though, I am still worried about them getting enough light. Hopefully they will make it until they can be transplanted onto my patio.

Chilling with the Cotyledons

Cucumber Seedlings

I was very worried about my little seedlings as none of them have developed any "true leaves," which I have read should have arrived shortly after the cotyledons. My mind began running away from me ... Did I overwater?  Is the fertilizer wrong? Not enough light? heat? Then, I looked through past pictures in my blog and realized that it was only four days ago that the cotyledons began to appear. Phew, thank goodness for blogging. My cucumber seedlings look okay besides the lack of true leaves. They are turning a nice dark green color (see picture at left) and are getting larger every day. So for now, I will keep my fingers crossed and hope that I will see true leaves in the next 7-10 day.

Alpine Strawberries Growing at Last!!



Alpine Strawberry Seedlings

 I was thrilled to find that after a month of germination the Renee's Garden Alpine strawberries began to show some green. I can now see tiny green plants the size of pins. This is very encouraging and leaves me questioning whether the berries growth is simply slowed due to our cold weather in Boston. Regardless, I am still a long way from this plant bearing fruit.

Plastic Bag Greenhouse

My Botanical Interests Marketmore cucumbers have been doing well. I've been steadily transplating them from the germination tray into 4 inch pots. I found that the 4 inch pots dried up verry quickly so I've been putting a plastic bag over the small pots to keep moisture & heat in.

First Sign of Life



First Seedlings



Botanicle Interests Org. Cucumbers



I was very excited this morning to see some green popping up from my egg-carton tray. Since my last post, I have planted some lettuce, the Renee's Garden Superbush tomatos, and cucumbers. I had germinated the cucumbers in a paper towel for two days while the lettuce seeds were too tiny to germinate. I am pretty disappointed with the items I bought from Renee's Garden thus far. The tomato seeds barely grew in the paper towel and less than 10% grew roots. The roots were 1/10th of an inch at best on the ones that did grow. Hopefully these guys will do better in the soil.

I continue to be impressed by the seeds I purchased on amazon by Botanicle Interests. The cucumber seeds grew roots in under two days and then once transplated into soil, popped up as little seedling overnight. Out of the 30 or so cucumber seeds I already have 7 seedlings. I'm impressed!

There's Root!



Organic Sugar Sweetie Tomatoes

 after 7 days.

Super Bush Seeds

I was very excited to see that my little organic sugar sweetie tomatoes, after spending 7 days in a moist warm paper towel, had roots! Without counting to get a more exact number, I would say that nearly 90% of these seeds were growing a good size root. The root length varies from 3/4's  to 5/4's of an inch. I was very impressed with this turnout, especially considering that I have another 30 seeds in a baggie that I have not taken out yet. This is particularly impressive compared to the new bag of Renee's Garden Super Bush seeds that I just received, which only contained about 40 seeds. Nonetheless, I have layed out the Super Bush tomato seeds on a different paper towel and put it in a plastic bag in a warm spot. 

I also set some cat grass out to germinate. My little ones should be happy to get this nice combination of rye, oats, barley, and wheat. They seem to just love eating plants. Just this week they did a number on my fresh cut daffodils!









Germinating

I am getting very excited for this year's adventure in gardening as the weather gets warmer here in Boston. I try to hold back in fear of growing plants indoors too soon. My Alpine strawberries are underway in a egg-carton container.

Next, I started my Sugar Sweetie Cherry Tomatoes by placing the seeds on some toilet paper, moistening it and putting it in a warm spot (on top of the cable box). I also wrapped the paper in aluminum to block out light. I will be keeping the paper moist over the next couple of days before moving into egg carton containers.



Sugar Sweetie Tomato seeds layed out to germinate on toilet paper.



The Seeds

Last year I had the fortune of buying a wild strawberry plant at Christmas Tree Shop plant store in late July and to my surprise this little plant produced super sweet 1/2 inch berries through all of August and September. The taste of wild strawberries really is unlike any other berry. The best way to describe it is a cross between a very sweet strawberry and raspberry.

This year I have decided to try growing this delicious fruit from seed. I purchased Alpine Mignonette Heirloom seeds from Renee's Garden on Amazon. I've read that these berries take some time to germinate so I planted them in seed starter (composed of 40% Composted Bark and 60% Peat Moss by Miracle Gro) well in early March (about a week ago). I am hoping that these guys pop up and I can transplant them into larger pots in late April. However, there is about a 50% chance of a frost after April 7th.