2023 Field Notes

 
 
 
 
 

Sown 4/2
Germination 4/6 (4 days)

Germination counts
4/6, 2pm: 4
4/7, 7am: 6
4/8, 8am: 7
4/9, 8am: 9
4/11, 7pm: 11
4/15, 7pm: 15/21
4/24, 5pm: ~30

Split germination numbers above are for what I'm fairly sure is Celosia, versus how many plants there actually are (see 15 April note below).

4/4 -- Sown into a 72. Seeds are TINY, about as tiny as snapdragons, so that part wasn't a lot of fun. Used potting mix, filled each cell nearly to the top since these need light to germinate. Added a thin layer of vermiculite on top to help secure the seeds and keep things moist. About half the tray has more than one seed in each cell because I got a 100 seed packet and Johnny's gave me a few more than 100. Will bottom water regularly and also occasionally mist the surface, given that these seeds aren't buried and thus are more susceptible to drying out.

4/8 -- These have germinated, but things are slow so far, only have eight of the 72 cells. I was worried about the covering of these seeds with the vermiculite - we'll see how things shake out, we're quite early with these, Johnny's has them 8-14 days and it took only three for the first germination on this tray. I did move these onto the heat mat on 4/7, we'll see what difference that makes. They should now be at a happier temperature.

4/11 -- Up to...11. Not expecting many more at this point. I've kinda had it with tiny seeds, if I'm being honest. I'm guessing here that I used too much vermiculite. They are still germinating, so we'll see where we net out. If we don't get many more, I'll likely move them to a different 72 to save tray space (and put something else in the 60 other cells of the 72).

4/14 -- Still 11. Booooooo.

4/15 -- Had a closer look at this tray - and there's some stuff going on. Noticed a bunch more...somethings have germinated. I think most of the new arrivals are Celosia, but I also believe there's an intruder on this tray - a little red stemmed plant that I've also pulled from a few other trays seems to have made a home on this tray too. Since the ones that have germinated aren't interfering with Celosia, as best I can tell, I'm leaving them be for now, mostly out of curiosity. I do think somehow four more Celosia have popped up, though, really late in the game!

4/24 -- What a weird tray this one is. I have thirty...things growing in it, new seedlings keep showing up, I hope they're Celosia but I honestly can't tell. Some have green stems, others red, and I have doubts about the red because the common small weeds I keep pulling from the other trays in the greenhouse are also red stemmed. In the meantime, I'm going to let everything keep growing, maybe compare what I have to what the internet thinks a celosia seedling looks like, and we'll figure it out from there.

5/28 -- Everything growing in this tray turned out to be a Celosia! The plants themselves are cool, in three different colors and ready to transplant. I'm just trying to find the best home for them - there aren't enough for a full bed, but I'll get them in the ground in the next couple of days.

5/29 -- Transplanted 12 of these into a 4x4 bed today, trying to alternate colors as best I can. What I planted all look good, although some of them are bigger than others. I have a few of these left but they're really small and I'm unlikely going to transplant them at this point. Watered them in using the phosphorus-rich fertilizer. These are apparently pinchable, but I don't think most of them are big enough to do that with yet, so I'll likely not end up doing that at all.

6/13 -- The transplants are doing well - they haven't exploded in size or anything, but they're larger and look happy on the whole.

6/25 -- These plants continue to grow, slowly, but are actually quite nice to look at even without the flowers. The one that does have the flowers hasn't seen them grow very much just yet.

7/2 -- Seeing more flowers coming now. Nothing huge yet but hopefully signs of things to come.

7/15 -- I really like these plants on the whole - the size and shape of them - but to this point, given what the pictures of these look like on the Johnny's website, the flowers have been a disappointment. They're there, but just not very big or impressive. There's still time or course but I'm not expecting anything major from them. And that's OK! Not all experiments work out exactly how you want them to.

8/5 -- Things have changed here too over the last couple of weeks. A lot more color from these plants!

8/25 -- Still going strong here, no issues and no signs of decay.