Mater Monday has arrived! The tomato sprouts were ready to be transplanted into their new cells. Not cell blocks like the incarceration kind, growing cells!
Before I got to sprout transplanting though, I had to wander around and collect some equipment, for I had other gardening work to do aside from transplanting the tomato sprouts. We've had some beautiful weather here in North Idaho lately, daytime highs in the 60's (Fahrenheit), which is not common let me tell you! So as I wandered out to grab the planters I needed for transplanting everything, I had to stop and take a peek at the garlic's progress:
Ten days ago the scapes of the bulbs were barely peeking up through the mulch, now they are beyond visible! I might have let out a little squee of joy. Okay, I did squeal in glee a bit, my dog judged me so I feel moderately not repentant at all, lest you all want to jump on board that train...
Anyway, after getting my planting cells out of the equipment shed, I got to work doing seedling work. The first order of business was the echinacea, Narrow Leaf Echinacea to be exact.
This year I am on a bit of a quest to make sure my medicinal herb garden game is on point. There are some ornamental cone flowers (echinacea) round here, but I wanted the true medicinal cultivar. So, I ordered these seeds from Pinetree Seeds, and for the last three weeks they have been chilling in the freezer doing the whole stratification thing so I will hopefully get a great germination rate. We'll see!
It took me two whole minutes to fill a recycled plastic cup with soilless potting mix, spread out the seeds, lightly cover, tamp them down, and water them. After labeling the cup, I placed them on my grow shelf and in 10-21 days we should see some baby echinacea plants. I sure hope so!
Then, I moved on to dividing and potting on my little Hollyhocks. I LOVE Hollyhocks! I am so excited to see what colors I get out these mixed seeds, and before you could say old fashioned tall flower of awesomeness, I had all twelve little Hollyhock plants divided and put in their own compost filled cells.
Next, it was tomato time. Before I started the tomato sprout transplant project, I had a fortifying snack of some Lily's white stevia sweetened chocolate and some roasted almonds, because I had 150 sprouts to transplant.
My germination rate was bussin (Sorry, I spent last night throwing shot put and discus in my yard with a bunch of teenage boys, my brain is full of Zoomer slang, bruh). Anyway, I got an overall germination rate of 90%, it was actually closer to 95% but my old Stupice seeds didn't germinate well, and since they were like seven years old, I wasn't mad about it. At least some sprouted!
After filling my tiny cell tray with soilless growing medium, I carefully, wielding my trusty pencil, stuck the sprouts into their individual cells, carefully notating the amount per variety transplanted on the painter's tape that I stuck to the side of the cell tray. Just like in most other things, accurate record keeping is beyond a must! Especially if you want to save your seeds!
The tomatoes didn't really take that long to transplant, as I have been doing my tomatoes this way for over a decade, well, let's just say I'm proficient at it. I then moved onto the basil.
Now, I am pretty fond of basil. I might even be a basil fanatic, so I am not ashamed to say that I started 48 cells of basil seed. Nope. Not ashamed all, because pesto. Plus, I am going to intersperse some basil plants in my rose garden because I want to. Also, I just love the smell of the stuff. I love throwing basil, cucumber, and mint into a pitcher of water for an infusion and then sipping an ice cold glass of the stuff while I sit on my front porch listening to big band records. Come on summer!
And on that note, I am going to prune this grow log here. I still have about an acre or two of yard to rake, pine needles to burn, and an herb/rose garden to build. You know, before next weekend. Farm life is fun!!
And as most of the time, all of the images in this post were taken on the author's slightly composty but not yet decomposing iPhone.
