Garden Update May 2014

Well it has been a really cold spring.
Then we went on a vacation and left the seeds in the charge of a house sitter, so a few more than usual bit the dust (not enough water).  Now that we have been back a few days I thought that despite today's snow I could do a quick status update by way of a few photos, here we go:

Below - I sow my seeds into Jiffy Pellets -I get 36 pellets for 3.99 at Canadian Tire.  Then the pellets go into a tray, that gets labeled, and covered with a translucent dome, and the tray goes on top of a heat pad.  Due to prolonged cold - even with the heat pad - several seeds just never emerged.

Once the seeds germinate and the first leaves emerge I transfer the peat pellet out of the domed incubation tray up to my grow light tray.  Here the grow lights shine 16 hours a day to strengthen the seedlings - this is the key to making sure to avoid weak and leggy seedlings - seedlings that are too weak and end up toppling over under their own weight.  After a week under the grow lights the roots tend to be escaping the seed pellet and it is time to transplant into pots.

My typical set up post-seedling transplant is shown here.  I transplant the jiffy pellet and seeding into a small reusable green pot, theses are .49c each at Apache Seeds. I think  this is the 4th year I have used them.  I use a soil-less mix that is sterile - again often sourced at Canadian Tire, taking care to make sure the bag says 'suitable for edible crops' because lots of potting soils are NOT suitable for edible crops.  These are full of chemicals, heavy metals etc.

 Here is another look at the interim potting set up. The plants will stay in these pots until roots come out the bottom drain holes and the weather is warm enough to place them outside.  Typically this means they get transplanted into their permanent pots or garden plots in early June in Edmonton. 

More seeds planted!

I planted even more seed yesterday, here is what went into the soil:
North Star Peppers, 6
Totem hybrid tomatoes, 4
Lemon boy tomatoes, 2
Golden bison tomatoes, 6
Pendulina orange tomatoes, 12
Latch tomatoes, 7
Flame cayenne peppers, 6

Also all planted in jiffy pellets on heat mat.

A new year, a new house, a new garden

2014 we are looking forward to a full growing season at our (new to us) home.  I am looking forward to documenting the garden as it grows and this means a full yard front and back, small as they are.  In the mean time the snow is still melting in a few spots so tonight I just finished seeding the first round of peppers and tomatoes.

Here is the list of what was planted:

Tomatoes:
Sub Arctic Plenty - William Dam, 12 ea.
Black Prince - Heritage Harvest 12 ea. 
Lemon Boy - William Dam 3 ea. 

Peppers:
Hungarian Hot Wax - Vesey's 12 ea. 
Gusto Purple - Vesey's 12 ea. 
Doe Hill - Heritage Harvest 12 ea.
Black Hungarian - Heritage Harvest 12 ea.

More seeds will likely get seeded this weekend, but that's lots for a Wednesday night!  

July Update! Tomatoes, peppers and cukes!

Its a bit of damp and cool day in Edmonton today which has chased me in to the apartment for a glass of red wine after taking these pictures.

Much of July has been damp too but the tomatoes are soaking it all up, as are the cucumbers and some of the peppers.  I think if it were a bit hotter a few of the peppers would be more developed but all in all things are looking good.  The tomatillos are also starting to produce fruit!  This is a bit of a departure from my past failures.  I chalk it up to having had six plants to pollenate each other.  After the fruit set, I threw out the runty pot to concentrate on allowing the 2 bigger monsters to grow.  On to the pics:

Not sure what tomato this is.

Tomatillo setting fruit!

Tomatillo plants.

Yellow Pear - Organic

Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Purple gusto peppers

Purple gusto peppers and Hungarian Hot Wax peppers

Corentine cuckes with dill

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Not 100% sure but I think this is Totem F1 Hybrid Tomato

Cucumber! I've never grown this plant before, this is Corentine.  

Corentine cukes are very easy to grow.  

Cucumber is hanging out with some cilantro.

Purple Gusto Peppers and Parsley

Purple Gusto peppers...almost look black!  

The heat is here!

The heat is here!

Finally.  

This being Saturday I had time to head to Canadian Tire for a bag of municipal compost and some drain rocks. Once home I transplanted a few of the bigger saplings today.

Below is the Sub Arctic Maxi in its new pot.  

Below is a view of the the tray of remaining Sub Arctic Maxi tomatoes.  These four and a tomatillo, didn't seem quite big enough to transplant yet.  In the next few days they should be monsters worthy of planting.

Below are the 2 flats of seedlings, I put them out in the sun and breeze to begin to harden them off.  Over the next couple of weeks I expect they will transition into larger pots.

Here are the rest of today's transplants, shown below.  From back to front: 2 tomatillos sharing one large pot, another sub arctic maxi tomato plant in a somewhat smaller pot, a single tomatillo in its own pot, and at the front a tomatillo sharing a pot with a Hungarian Hot Wax Pepper.  This pepper seemed to be the only one large enough to bear a transplant yet...even then I might have been pushing it, but I was excited to get it into a pot with another plant.

That's all for today, but what a landmark day it is, when the seedlings make it into their big-boy pots!  Happy planting.  

Everything is getting a little bit bigger

We have seen continued success in the seedlings department.  I am quite happy with the grow lights this year.  We have continued to experience a cold April this year.  It is currently 0C and it is April 21 today.  We also have not been getting many sunny days.  So the grow lights have been good to have around.

In the photo above the largest plants are the tomatillos.  The grow lights really helped prevent them from getting too leggy.  Last year all but one died as a result of being too leggy.  In the foreground the peat seed pellet is a Gusto Purple Pepper.  The tomato in the middle ground is a Lemon Boy.

Above is the latest seedlings to crop up.  This tray is a real mixed bag of everything from Yellow Pear tomatoes, Totem F1 tomatoes, Hot Wax peppers and Purple Gusto peppers.  The seeds with the worst germination rate this year are the Organic Yellow Pear.  I think I have about 3 of them out of all I planted.

The Sub Arctic tomatoes are the hands-down off to the races winners this year.  They are doing very well.  I had to stake them up to keep them from bending over into the sun, but otherwise seem to be very well suited to the cooler climate and obviously are vigorous growers.

Above is an overhead shot to show you what the growing set up looks like right now.  We are about to go out of town for a week and have a house sitter, so I have the lights on timers, and the only thing the house sitter needs to do is water the trays. I will not be expecting any seedlings that sprout while we are away to survive, or be transplanted into pots, so this is the extent of the tomato and pepper crop this year.  I might have a peek into the seed incubator when I get back and see if there is anything to salvage, but I am not going to get my hopes up.

Seed Count:

Sub Arctic - 5
Hot Wax - 7
Gusto Purple - 5
Toma Verde - 5
Lemon Boy - 5
Totem - 2
Yellow Pear - 2
Unknown - 2 (Ran out of plant i.d. tags)

All in all it seems like an interesting, diverse crop is shaping up this year.

One round of sprouts, one more round of sowing

Another snowy weekend in Edmonton.  Sigh.  I'm not letting it hold the garden back yet.

This week on Friday the Toma Verde's were the first to sprout!  This year I am determined to see them live, so I had made an advance purchase of 2 cantilever desk lamps and some grow bulbs.  I want to make sure the seedlings get the light they need to live rather than straining them selves to death as they did last year.  This year every sign so far seems to indicate the lighting is making an impact.

The second seeds to burst forth from the earth was the Sub Arctic Plenty's.  All seeds sown have germinated.

The third seeds to make it above ground are a couple (so far) of Lemon Boy tomatoes.  We had a little scare this afternoon where they seemed to droop a bit, but I think it was a reflection of taking them out of their domes and the shock of dealing with the dry air.

With all 3 of these seedlings moving out of the incubators and into 3 inch pots I decided to sow 3 more varieties of seeds.  Today I planted the following into the Jiffy Peat Pellets, and placed the incubators on the heat pad and radiator:

8x Totem F1 Hybrid tomato from William Dam Seeds
8x Yellow Pear Organic tomato from William Dam Seeds
8x Gusto Purple pepper from Vesey's

Pictures of the set up:

 Here (above) you can see the still-inculbating Hot Wax peppers and where some of the Lemon Boys were living until they were potted this morning. The freshly planted Yellow Pear seeds can be seen in the incubator on the radiator in the background.

 Above are visible the new sprouts, a mix of Toma Verde tomatillos and Sub Arctic Pleanty tomatoes.  The stainless steel desk lamps make easily adjustable grow lamps.  The lamp on the left has a Ottlite Gro Bulb CFL and the lamp on the right has a Philips Daylight CFL.

 What at this time appears to be a happy and healthy Sub Arctic Plenty sprout.

The entire first tray of sprouts can be seen in this lengthwise photo.   In this view is the new Lemon Boy, Sub Arctic Plenty, and the Toma Verdes.

New this year is the timer to control the CFL grow lights. I have it set so that no matter the weather there is an ample supply of light for 16 hours a day.

That's it for this week's instalment of Just Leafy!