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I had some time today since my dirt for cloning seedless grapes is frozen so I figured I should see if the strawberry seeds stratifying in the refrigerator would sprout.

20220118_164706_HDR.jpg


Seems I lost track of time. This experiment mat have been done a year ago. I went ahead and planted them to see what will happen.

20220118_175532_HDR.jpg


Not holding out a lot of hope. I have some spruce seeds I collected last fall 5hat I should start stratifying soon.

It feels good to have the grow station back in action.

:thumbs:

Ben
 
Today, I ordered some more of the heavy black seed starter trays, last year I bought some of them with the tall dome lids and I really like the results (I can grow the plants larger) but I have also found that I want to have more so once the lids are removed I can keep adding more..... I have started just filling the tray with soil and direct sowing them, right now I have 2 with bib lettuce growing, 2 with spinach sprouting, and 1 with radishes.
I want to add onions and have a second planting of lettuce and spinach.

I have 3 of the small concrete mixing tubs with lettuce, turnips, beets, and onions that are in different states of growth (the lettuce is on it's second harvest). The bucket carrots are now about as big around as my little finger, but I am in no rush as I still have 2 pounds of them from the outdoor harvest last week.

I do have 2 of the black seed starter trays that are being used to hold water for containers with herbs, broccoli, and cabbage plants.
 
Got around to the seedless grape vine cloning project now that the dirt thawed out.

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18 cuttings is enough for this year. I considered doing more but they would have been from the smaller new growth branches that I have not had good results using them.

20220120_170353_HDR.jpg


They sit for a month or two before I can figure out if they set roots. I did use rooting hormone and they are sitting on the heat mat the strawberry are on.

Time will tell.

Ben
 
Neb said:
Got around to the seedless grape vine cloning project now that the dirt thawed out.

View attachment 78896

18 cuttings is enough for this year. I considered doing more but they would have been from the smaller new growth branches that I have not had good results using them.

View attachment 78897

They sit for a month or two before I can figure out if they set roots. I did use rooting hormone and they are sitting on the heat mat the strawberry are on.

Time will tell.

Ben
Click to expand...
Keep us posted!
 
Today I harvested about a gallon of spinach and a gallon of lettuce. The spinach is growing outdoors in the covered raised beds, there was some lettuce in there but it wilted. I have to say that I felt a little funny out there in 28 degree weather, standing at the raised beds in my house slippers and harvesting spinach.. It's funny how crunchy the frozen soil is.... If we ever get a day where it warms up to above 50 I will remove the wilted lettuce and plant more spinach for the early spring harvest. The loose leaf lettuce I harvested was grown indoors, I plan to trim back some of the plants and see if they will keep producing. I have 2 new trays that are growing bib lettuce and those plants are about 3 inches high. This morning I transplanted a small clump of bib lettuce that I planted 2 weeks ago, so that will give me a third tray of that kind of lettuce. So now the indoor garden has about 10 different types of plants growing..... I still have about 3 more shelves that I can grow things on, but I am out of the heavy duty trays, I hope to have that fixed by Monday via Amazon.
 
I walked around after church today. It's 38 outside and warmer inside the covered raised beds, so I figured what the heck, I dug out the wilted lettuce worked the soil a bit and replanted with spinach. The soil was a bit dry so I put about 10 gallons of water onto each bed. I would have connected a hose, but it's still staying mostly in the twenties, and I figured I was safer to just haul the water....

So now I have spinach in 3 stages spread across 4 locations, I hope we get enough to blanch and freeze a lot of it this year. Last year we ended up with about 10 pounds in the freezer, but the wife would like more. We are currently able to harvest enough for salads but it takes a lot more to be able to freeze it...

While I was outside my seed starter trays arrived (no holes this time), so I can start doing some more work indoors. I plan to make a shelf outdoors so when things warm up a tad I can move some cold weather things outdoors (by warm up a tad I mean mid to late March)

Last year the cabbage and broccoli I started indoors did well but just as they made heads the caterpillars got to them, this year I plan to move them into netted shelves to keep the butterfly's away.
 
Because my spinach seems to come up better outdoors (even if it's freezing at night) I am doing an experiment with 2 starter trays, each was planted at the same time, one will be sat out on the back porch for 2 days and then brought in to see if a couple days of cool weather will speed germination...
 
Today I checked and the spinach trays that had spent 2 nights out in sub-freezing weather before being brought back in have all sprouted, the spinach tray that was planted and put on the shelf have not sprouted yet. So because they were planted at the same time and from the same seed packet I will have to say that putting then out in the cold right after planting and then returning to the house will make the plants sprout faster....

FYI the over night temps were right at 20 and the highs were about 38 for the nights the plants were outside....

Smalltimefarmer said:
I killed all of my turmeric and ginger plants and was looking to replace.
One plant is $11. To me, that is expensive. Anyone have any more economical sources? Thank you.
Click to expand...

Ginger root sounds easy enough How to Grow a Ginger Plant

I looked into buying turmeric rhizomes that you can grow plants from and discovered that Amazon had both turmeric and ginger live rhizomes, but they are both about $13 per pound (I think you could get a lot of plants off that) and I read that you can grow them indoors....
 
UrbanHunter said:
Today I checked and the spinach trays that had spent 2 nights out in sub-freezing weather before being brought back in have all sprouted, the spinach tray that was planted and put on the shelf have not sprouted yet. So because they were planted at the same time and from the same seed packet I will have to say that putting then out in the cold right after planting and then returning to the house will make the plants sprout faster....

FYI the over night temps were right at 20 and the highs were about 38 for the nights the plants were outside....



Ginger root sounds easy enough How to Grow a Ginger Plant

I looked into buying turmeric rhizomes that you can grow plants from and discovered that Amazon had both turmeric and ginger live rhizomes, but they are both about $13 per pound (I think you could get a lot of plants off that) and I read that you can grow them indoors....
Click to expand...
Much of the ginger and turmeric rhizomes in stores are sprayed with a sprouting retardant. I can't remember where I got my first batch. I do remember it can take weeks for them to come up. That's not unusual though. I have kept them growing inside during the Winter. The hard part was keeping thE cats from using as a litter box. $13 a pound sounds good compared to $11 plus shipping for one plant.
 
Went to Sprouts today and found organic ginger and turmeric. They had not been sprayed with the retardant. I got 9 oz of ginger with lots of nodules to sprout and 6 oz of turmeric. The cost of all was less than 1 plant of each from the seed catalog. It's worth a try. There was also an elephant garlic that had shoots coming out so I bought it too.
 
Tomorrow is a seed stock up trip to a family friend that owns a small garden center. He carries the Botanical Interest seed line (also Franchi seeds--it's an Italian company). When I get Dad home, we're going to start our tomatoes and peppers. I'll sneak in some cabbage and broccoli. I always started them in the windowsill but this year I thought I'd "step it up" and got grow lights and heat mats.
 
Has anyone used a garden planner app? There are several available. I went with the Mother Earth News planner and I think it had a free trial for a time, then had to pay for subscription to keep it going. I have forgotten about it a few times apparently, cause when I got into it last week, the program remembered me & my fumblings back to 2014 when I first found it.

This time I am determined to use it and set it up in more detail of what I have going already, with what I want to do in the future. There are alot of helpful features, including what not to plant in a given area based on what was planted there in the past. It does take some effort to figure out and how it works, or atleast it does for me........but once you get the hang of it, it does come in handy.


Vegetable Garden Planner : Design Your Best Garden Ever | Mother Earth News


And here's a link to other planners or sites.....

11 Garden Planners and Programs (thespruce.com)
 
hughewil said:
I've got about 2 feet of snow on the ground here.
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Sorry to hear that--I only got about 8” yesterday. I like to look at snow storms as drought insurance ;)

My friend‘s seed salesman told him seeds are gonna short this year. Joey suggested I stock up best I could. Going to have to learn about saving seed this year.

Started Brandywine, Beefsteak and RedRipe tomatoes. Have a trial pack of Guerney’s Umberto Pear cherry tomato that I’ll get started during the week.
 
Just get supermarket tube & grow your own.
Smalltimefarmer said:
I killed all of my turmeric and ginger plants and was looking to replace.

One plant is $11. To me, that is expensive. Anyone have any more economical sources? Thank you.
Click to expand...
 
lilmissy said:
Any advice on starting new elderberry trees? I took cuttings last year, some I out in dirt in a container, put in a plastic bag. The others i just out in water with a plastic bag. Kept warm for months and nothing happened.
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A gal I know up in Oklahoma started some before Thanksgiving. Took a few cuttings from a neighbor's tree, stuck them in a jar of water, put them in a sunny window. She changes the water about once a week and mixes in some root start powder. She started seeing roots about two weeks ago!
 
Pearl said:
A gal I know up in Oklahoma started some before Thanksgiving. Took a few cuttings from a neighbor's tree, stuck them in a jar of water, put them in a sunny window. She changes the water about once a week and mixes in some root start powder. She started seeing roots about two weeks ago!
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Thanks Pearl! I didnt change the water and I didnt add root powder.....maybe that explains the failure 🥴
 
It's warming up to 50 today and there is a steady rain, so I went out this morning and opened up all the raised bed lids, right now there is only spinach, onions, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and oregano out there but they could all really use the water. I will have to go out late this evening and close them all down because tomorrow they are predicting ICE.......
 
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