Seedy Saturday/ Sunday - Day 1

FINALLY

I hauled pots & trays and bags of dirt out.  I've been henpecking around my seed package binders for the past month ... organizing & reorganizing them in planting order and in order of years (yup this is my third year so I can say that now) ... getting each packet back to where it should be - luckily I found the final seeds planted in the garden last year neatly placed in sleeves of a little book almost right where they should have been ... after almost unpacking the entire garage and I found what else I was looking for exactly where I brilliantly put it - so no I didn't foolishly pack my heating mat way at the back of the garage behind a ton of things - it was right on the treadmill (where I should have been during the past month and where I should have found it immediately).

I'm learning.  This year I poured the soil and water into a big dish and used a trowel to scoop it into deep cell pots AND the whole mess was done in the tub so after it was all done I just took the hand-held shower and sprayed the tub clean!  It certainly looks like I posed the Conversations with My Gardener by Henri Cueco book on the side of the tub but no - it's where I was last reading it - in the tub ... when I realized it was there I figured it should be in the shot.  And of course, you all know why I didn't take a before shot - huge clumps of brown soil doesn't translate well in a bathroom photo, etc.

I also wrote out my planting plan with a little legend at the bottom ahead of time so that there was no searching for missing pen & paper with muddy fingers not coming back to the pot and mistaking what went where when, etc. (third year gardening - remember)!  From left to right, I planted two rows of hot peppers (cayenne and jalapeno); two rows of sweet (california wonder and buran sweet); two rows of eggplants (black beauty and bianca rosa) and the last two rows are all chippolini onions. 

  

And now my little warm wet seeds are all snug in their cells.  I put 4 into each.  I'm hoping two will survive and that I can transplant one of the two survivors into a second tray (of course nothing living will get kicked too far off the island).  Oh - and I marked the bottom lower left corner of the actual deep cell tray so that if I flip it around during watering I won't be making any mistakes about which plants are hot peppers and which are onions!


Gardening has really been creeping into these past couple of weeks.  Wednesday I attended a lecture at the Toronto Botanical Gardens by Mathew Wilson called How to Garden in a Changing Climate. Saturday we got our shelves at the greenhouse.  Today I went to Seedy Saturday on a Sunday.  This week, Wednesday, I'm looking forward to going to Lulu Lounge and getting a copy of Grow Great Grub for the greenhouse at Gayla's book launch.  Saturday I'm attending a plant a-long at the greenhouse and helping finish our cold frame (if only just to put Kyla's book in the book bin).