2023 Field Notes

Sown 3/15
Germination 3/22 (7 days)

Germination counts
3/22, 4pm: 8
3/23, 7am: 16
3/24, 7am: 28
3/24, 3pm: 35
3/25, 9am: 40
3/26, 8am: 50

3/15 -- Put these in the same tray as the Delphinium. For these, used a custom germ mix of one third coir, perlite, and vermiculite, that ended up being very lovely and light. Hopefully it works well. These move over in three weeks time so no need for nutrients. Also pre-wet the mixture. Placed the seeds on top and very lightly pressed them to keep them in place, but otherwise left them uncovered as per instructions.

3/19 -- Moved off the heat mat, since the next tray (Snapdragon and Salvia) needed a higher temperature (75 degrees, instead of 70). Brought the greenhouse temp up to compensate, will be keeping an eye on the mix temp to make sure it stays between 65 and 70. No germination yet but not expecting to see any for several more days.

3/22 -- Germination! Noticed the first one of these in the morning, alongside a handful of other, REALLY tiny new seedlings. Managed to spot approximately eight of these, but again, they're extremely tiny so not that easy to count.

3/23 -- Spotted another eight or so in the morning, so up to approximately 16. Continued protocol of bottom watering the full tray every other day.

3/25 -- These are progressing beautifully. Up to 80% germinated after 10 days.

3/31 -- Basically achieved full germination with these. They remain very small, however - certainly not ready for transplanting any time soon, despite now getting fairly close to the pot up date. We'll see how this progress over the next few days. Not all 50 look viable, probably closer to 40 good candidates at this point. Bottom watering very other day.

4/6 -- These are at the pot-up point but really aren't ready for that - they are still quite small and really only now starting to develop additional leaves. Planning to leave them alone for at least a couple more days to see if they get big enough to move.

4/9 -- Attempted a pot up of the six "biggest" of these today. Biggest doesn't mean big - they were tiny, but all six did have true leaves, at least. We'll see how they do - if they hang in there for a couple of days and look OK, I'll move a bunch more over.

4/11 -- The attempted pot up doesn't appear to be successful - only one of them looks not dead at this point. It was always a long shot I suppose. The remainder in the tray got a shot of fertilizer today and a dedicated light source, but I don't have high hopes for them either. Honestly, this is fine - I wasn't banking on these. Note for future self, though - mix in a little compost!

4/14 -- Same as snapdragon, no real progress here so this tray is going to get abandoned. Foxglove was probably the thing lowest on my list this year anyway, so no huge loss. If I try again, I need to make sure there's more nutrition available to these from the outset.

4/24 -- To this point, my only failure of this greenhouse growing season (so far!). Scrapped the tray last week because I needed the space for other new trays, and these were going nowhere. The Delphiniums that shared the tray, however, are a different story...at least so far.