Green Mini Greenhouse: The Basil Flat

I had forgotten how many varieties of basil I had until I went through my seeds the other day.  This will be my second attempt to get some decent plants out of these seeds.  Instead of using store bought peat pots or plastic trays in this mini greenhouse I used my hand rolled newspaper pots that I made a few years ago.  There was enough room for 11 rows of 7 little pots.  I labeled the lid with the seed name and L for left and R for right and the base with L and R so I could keep tabs on which row was which.  They were planted, watered and set in a south facing window with the cover on and vents closed on 4/14/09.

These are the seeds planted in the mini greenhouse from left to right:

• Cinnamon Basil
• Purple Basil
• Italian Sweet Basil
• Dwarf Bush Fineleaf Basil
• Spicy Globe Basil
• Greek Basil
• Fino Verde Basil
• Summerlong Basil
• Siam Queen Thai Basil
• Lime Basil
• Easter Egg Plant (no this isn’t basil, but I had an extra row :))

Flat 1: Tomatoes and Peppers

I have a myriad of tomato and pepper seeds.  Since they have similar requirements for temperature and light I decided to plant them in one flat together.  The flat has 16 rows of 8 cells each.  The seeds were planted, watered and covered and placed over the top of my 30 gallon aquarium on 4/14/09.  The temperature above the aquarium and aquarium light is about 80 degrees providing a warm enough temperature to encourage germination.  After 3 days some of my tomatillo seeds (that are 6 years old) already started to sprout.  Yesterday morning, the 17th, I moved the flat to the south facing window.  This morning I noticed that one of Robbie’s Tomatoes had started to sprout.

These are the seeds in Flat 1 from left to right, and bottom to top (or front to back):

• King’s Choice Hybrid Tomatoes/Beefsteak Tomatoes
• Robbie’s Tomatoes/Spike’s Tomatoes (unsure of varieties, harvested from relatives gardens 2 years ago)
• Mom’s Tomatoes/Mystery Hot Pepper
• Olena Ukranian/Italian Market Wonder/Bonny Best/Golden Queen - only had a few seeds so I planted 2 of each
• Costoluto Genovese/Cosmonaut Volkov/Marglobe VF/TigerLike Tomatoes - 2 of each
• Assorted Tomatoes/Speckled Roman Heirloom
• Tomatillos
• Delicious Tomato/ Mystery Tomato
• Jelly Bean Hybrid (commercial ‘07 pelleted)/commercial ‘08 pelleted/harvested ‘07 fermented
• Chile Arbol
• Chile Bola
• Chile Guajillo (4)/Cajun Tabasco (2)/Cuban Hot (2)
• Chile Ancho (aka Poblano)
• Green Bell Pepper/Red Bell Pepper
• Jalapeño Early Pepper/Serrano Pepper
• Marconi Red Pepper/Cayenne Pepper

Milk Jug Greenhouse 1: Mary Washington Asparagus

In this milk jug there are 19 hand rolled newspaper pots with Hoffman Seed Starter mix.  There are air holes cut in the top and sides and drain holes in the bottom.  The pots were seeded and watered and placed outside on 4/16/09.  The Mary Washington Asparagus seeds from 2004 season were put in warm water and allowed to soak for 10 days (hope it wasn’t too long; I kind of forgot about them ).

Flat 2: Herbs and Veggies

This 10×20 flat was filled with 8 9-cell trays.  Each tray holds one variety of seed.

These are the herbs and veggies planted in flat 2 listed as laid out in each tray (since I didn’t plant them in rows per se):

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Well then here is the start of my planting for the 2009 season. I truly hope I didn’t get started too late. I think this afternoon Yeyda and I will go outside once the baby falls asleep so we can start cleaning up the yard. It feels phenomenal to have the windows open finally after being trapped in the house for so many months.

My “winter” sowing has become a moot project.  Since it is officially spring I’m going to try the same technique but without the benefit of snow cover or so I thought. Last night in an effort to keep my little 3 year old entertained I asked her to help me go through my seed collection and remove seed pods from some dried out sedum flowers.  She thought that was great.  Later I checked the weather report since it had been raining most of the day and it mentioned something about snow on Monday.

Today so far has been a soggy, messy, rain/snow mix.  Not enough to look pretty or stick, just enough to make you feel blah.  My only consolation is that my flowers and plants that are in the ground are getting plenty of water right now.

I’ve picked out the seeds that I want to start indoors today.  Tomatoes, basil, and easter egg plant are among the candidates.  I also have several varieties of peppers that I want to get going before it gets to late.  When you think about 90 days to mature that means I’ll need to have plants ready by the first part of June if I want fruits before the first frost.   Any later than the mid part of June and I’m asking for a very short window to harvest any fruits off my warmer weather plants.  I’ll keep you posted how things go.

The talented people at the Botanicalls Project have found a way to bridge the gap of communication between people and plants.  They have created a sensor which monitors the plant’s moisture levels and sends Tweets to your mobile phone when it needs watered.  It even sends a “Thank You” when you show it love by watering it.  In an effort to show the public how this works they have a tweeting plant set up named Pothos.  As of today it has 3,025 followers and 152 updates and indicates it is in Urgent need of a watering :).  How cool is that!?!

This would be a great gift for the avid gardener in your life. (*hint*hint*)

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One sad revelation of this recent flooding is that a close friend of mine discovered all the fish in their pond had died. Apparently the ice cover on the pond got too thick and it was too cold for the fish to survive. When their pond flooded the property they found large bass, catfish, amors and bluegill floating all over their yard. The last time they had such a catastrophic loss of fish was the drought of ‘88 that caused a turnover in their pond water. It was the first time I’d heard of such a thing. The water on the surface heats up to such temperatures that somehow it forces the cold water from the depths to rise to the surface and the hot water that sinks cooks the poor fish seeking shelter on the bottom.

You can thus imagine how large some of those fish they lost were since they were from the restocking of the pond 21 years ago. I guess they’ll just have to start anew. My suggestion to them since they were planning on having a larger garden this year is to bury the dead fish underneath since it would give their plants some very rich food. If I recall that is how the American Indians taught the Pilgrims to farm.

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DD1 simply loves to play in the herb garden with me.  She knows that the basil, mint, stevia, sage, lavendar and rosemary are edible as opposed to the hostas, petunias and sedum in my flower garden.  Her favorite combination is the mint and stevia because it tastes like gum.

For me it is amazing to watch her marvel at the textures, colors, smells and tastes of the garden.  We also have some apple trees and a good size yard that offers many different creature experiences.  The NatureBag company has created an educational packet to take full advantage of all the different items you find outdoors.

To learn more about the NatureBag and enter to win one for your munchkin go to GrabBagReviews for several chances to enter.

I tried before I gave birth to rearrange things so that we could do some winter sowing, but it didn’t work out in time.  I was suffering from some pretty serious edema and it took all I had just to get things ready to make room for the baby.  So, I’ve still got messes of items I had to move around and put away.  If only I could get my 8 foot table cleaned off I’d have a place to sow some seeds (we had to clean out some shelves and the stuff ended up on the table).  There are more pressing matters on my mind though - making sure the kiddies are fed and warm, the house is clean (as well as I can do it right now) and that I don’t lose it in the process.

I sure do miss gardening though.  In my quiet times when I’m nursing the baby I think about how I can take her outside with me in the spring and keep the bugs off her.  Sun protection is a no brainer, but I’m still trying to think of a non chemical way to keep the flies and skeeters away from her.  I guess I could drape mosquito netting over her pack n’ play.  By the time I’ll be ready to spend more time outside she’ll be close to crawling age so I’ll have to set up a nice clean play area for her.  My three year old is my little helper.  She loves to play in the dirt and is learning already how to identify the flowers and herbs I plant.  Hopefully this year we can have a productive garden that we can all enjoy.