[Homestead] Seed starting methods

Clansgian at wmconnect.com Clansgian at wmconnect.com
Wed Feb 1 10:13:43 EST 2006


You place the lamp on a stable box or something in the middle of the 
greenhouse? 


The middle of the greenhouse is a growing bed 16' x5'.  The flats are placed 
on bare spots of that and a lamp placed on the ground.  The key is keeping the 
whole thing close to the ground.  In an unheated, uninsulated, plastic 
greenhouse at night, it is warmer close to the ground than on the benches,


> 
> Sounds like you really fill that flat completely full.  Do you recognize 
> the true leaves of all the variety you sow or do you label each and 
> every hole (or row) you've planted?
> 

Most of the time the whole flat is planted with the same thing.   Or it is 
planted with, say, only cabbages of different varieties... in which case the 
flat is labeled with a number and I have a notebook with schematic flats I can 
easily label as to the rows,




> 
> Please talk about this a bit further.

Anything can be transplanted.  Some do better the more times they are 
transplanted and some must be treated delicately.  Last year's experiments showed 
that even carrots can be transplanted so long as they are only 1/2" high.

Take kale for example.  If you direct seed, the ground in your garden is 
being used by the seed for 7 ot 14 days while the seedlings emerge.  Then there's 
the battle with the weeds that are often the same size as the seedlings.  I 
treat kale as if it were cabbage letting the plants get big and continuously 
harvesting the leaves.  So if I direct seeded, the next step would be thinning 
the plants (and eating the thinnings).   Before I could get my kale plants 
planted in the 8" x8" grid for their final growth, I've encumbered the garden bed 
for a month or more.  

Instead,  I plant  flat of kale (or several) and when the seelings are 3" 
tall or so, I transplant them to a holding bed in the garden until they are 5" or 
so tall.  Then I plant them out on an 8" x 8" grid.  They are so big by now 
that I can mulch the them heavily and so have no weeds.

Here's last year's red kale after it had been transplanted for a week:
www.geocities.com/peaceablekingdomfarm/sal2.jpg

and here's the Siberian kale planted like that when it's ready to cut:
www.geocities.com/peaceablekingdomfarm/kale1.jpg




  Also, does your kale overwinter 

> and come back next year? 



 The kale will survive for about 18 months so kale I planted last spring is 
leaving out even as we speak and typically I can harvest from it until 
midsummer.



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