As you may have noticed yesterday, several seedlings have sprouted in the kitchen, so they needed to go upstairs. When I went up there, I figured out that I needed to play musical plants again. For instance, my six tomato seedlings are growing like gangbusters now.
And more importantly, my soil block tray is filling up quickly.
So as you can probably tell, I moved the lights around as well as the seedlings. I needed the tomato light to help with the soil block tray so I angled it down, necessitating changing the tomato seedlings from shortest to tallest instead of random. This is better now because the light is closer to all the tomato plants now. That's good because a few of the tomatoes are not necessarily leggy, but being blown over by the big fan (even on low). For now I've used whatever I can find to prop them up, but I may get some more Mel's mix and fill the cups. That's a good weekend project.
Notice the lack of stickers on the rows of soil blocks? That's because I forgot to lable some of the rows in the kitchen. Oops. I think it's lettuce, so I can plant them and have a mesculn mix, hehe.
Anyway, here's the setup today.
I'm definitely running out of space. I may need to turn the trays sideways and only use the parts under the lights. Not sure if that'll give more space, but once all the blocks germinate in the kitchen, my light system is going to be very crowded.
Well, that's it for me. No real to-do list for me for this weekend because it's really busy on the home front (and renovation front). I hope the weather cooperates and I find time, I will get out to the garden, though I doubt shopping for wicking baskets is going to happen. Though I would love to make it to a nursery to see if I can't get quart pots or whatever to pot up my tomatoes. The containers I've got for them are a bit wide. Again, space issues.
Anyway, enjoy your garden!
I angle the lights like that too to keep the tall seedlings from bumping the light and the shorter less mature plants adequately close for good growth.
ReplyDeleteI get overloaded under the lights at this time of year and am tempted to set up a smaller extra light set up to handle the overflow - but the truth is it only happens during this high pitch peak of seed starting and really does not justify the expense. By sticking to a starting schedule that moves plants in and out of the seed starting area based on their individual needs - I manage to keep from getting a complete overlow situation from occuring.
Sorry work is being icky for you, if it's any consolation - same for me. Feeling tired and a little cranky the past few days. Need some down time and a little sunshine (which is not forecasted for the weekend unfortunately).
Uh oh, I don't see pics :( Looks like all those hits the other day exceeded your photo hosting bandwidth :(
ReplyDeleteYeah, looks like too many of us are viewing his photos.
ReplyDeleteSinfonian: just a suggestion.. you should host your images on Google's Picasaweb, so you don't have bandwidth limitations. They give you 1GB of storage to start with and if you need more $20/yeah will get you 10GB.
I feel your pain with the limited light space. I just put a bunch of sprouted cell packs under the light and realized I am running out of space before even starting tomatoes. I will have to make another plant tray proper-uper thing.
ReplyDeleteHey Sinfonian - where did you get those lights? They are exactly what I've been looking for, but for some reason I haven't been able to find any around here. I was just about to give up and order a whole light and stand out of a seed catalogue, but that's pretty expensive.
ReplyDeleteWow I need to go lower my lights!
ReplyDeleteYou might be interested in the Automated Low Watt Greenhouse I made.
http://hyperlocavore.wordpress.com/2009/03/14/diy-project-low-watt-led-greenhouse/
Sinfonian, do you have instructions on how to make soil blocks?
ReplyDelete