2023 Field Notes

 
 

Sown 3/19
Germination 3/24 (5 days)

Germination counts
3/24, 7am: 5
3/25, 9am: 34/23 (57)
3/26, 8am: 59/44 (102)
3/27, 7am: 67/51 (118)

Split germination numbers above indicate seeds covered with thin layer of vermiculite/uncovered.

3/19 -- 100 seeds spread out into ten rows on a 20 row tray, using the custom germination mix. Pre-wet the mixture to make sure the seeds would stick, and then dropped them in. They're so small, no way to "press" them into the mix. Five of the rows were left without covering, and the other five rows, I put a very light layer of vermiculite on top, hopefully to the point where sufficient light will still be available for the seeds to germinate. Misted them down, and then they replaced the D&D tray on the heat mat, since they and the Salvias that are sharing the tray need mid-70s for germination.

3/23 -- Noticed the tray was quite dry this morning, so might be re-thinking my bottom watering every other day schedule. Based on results last year, expecting some germination within the next day or two.

3/24 -- Germination, right on schedule. Very hard to spot these guys, as usual.

3/25 -- These exploded overnight. Still a little hard to count but well over 50 germinated at this point. Seems the seeds covered with vermiculite are doing better than those I didn't cover, HOWEVER, seems easier to spot them in the vermiculite due to the uniformity of texture and color, so we'll see if this ends up actually being the case.

3/31 -- Lots of tiny snapdragons, counted 120 earlier today. Not all will be viable but many of these, while still tiny, of course, look very good. Hopefully these keep progressing. I'm bottom watering basically every other day.

4/6 -- These are...fine? Still plenty of them, they are still small, but no issues. Still a bunch of time before they're supposed to be potted up.

4/9 -- Really don't seem to be progressing as they should. I'm wondering if my nutrition-deficient mix is now stunting their growth - that may not have been the correct choice for seeds like these that spend a long time in their initial tray. I pulled one and it does have about .5 inches of root - might be possible to pot these up early to see if I can salvage them. Alternative would be to water them with fertilizer today. Learning toward the latter.

4/11 -- No real change. These are on life support unfortunately. Tried a fertilizer infusion and a dedicated grow light as a last ditch effort but I don't expect results. It's too bad, but plenty of other plants are doing fine that can take this bed instead. Same as Foxglove note, next year make sure to add some compost to the germination mix.

4/14 -- Still no change. Considering this a failure for the season and going to abandon the lot. I think I've kinda had it with snapdragons. I'm pretty sure the lack of enough nutrients in the germination mix stalled these out, so it's my fault, but these things are too finicky!

4/23 -- Similar story to Salvia, these germinated amazingly, and then never grew! I decided about a week ago to transplant a dozen of them anyway, into a 50 cell with potting mix (next to the Salvias) just to see what would happen - and to my shock, they're still alive and now growing. They're small and well behind where they should be, but may actually be viable. Same as what I wrote over in the Salvia notes, the mix was probably to blame, I'll use a different formula next year.

4/29 -- Somehow, the twelve transplants are still alive and kicking and GROWING. Pretty pleased about this, very unexpected. They look good enough that I'm now expecting to be able to plant them out.

5/28 -- The 12 of these I moved have kept growing, and while they're distinctly behind where they should be, I'm going to be able to transplant them out into the garden, albeit behind schedule. I'm likely not going to pinch them this year, as that will delay flowering until the heat of the summer, when snapdragons tend to go dormant.

5/29 -- Transplanted eight of these into the same 4x4 bed the Celosia went into. They look good, and I still think I'm not going to pinch them this year.

6/13 -- Transplants look just fine. I also went ahead and put the two remaining good plants into a pot, alongside two extra Celosia, as an experiment.

6/18 -- These are growing nicely. I'm hoping that putting them in a slightly shadier spot will mean that it doesn't matter that they are behind, size-wise.

7/2 -- No flowers yet, so we'll see if this cool-weather lover feels like making some in July. The plants themselves are growing well and look fine, so no issues there.

7/11 -- Flowers are starting to peek out now. Suspect they'll be on full display in about a week.

7/15 -- These are officially colorful now.

8/5 -- Those that flowered are largely done flowering, and because I didn't pinch them, a couple of them only delivered a single (very pretty) stalk, and are now done. That was intentional, so totally OK on my part. Was also pleased that a plant that likes colder weather was able to produce a nice display later in the season. I attribute at least some of that to the fact that I planted these in a shadier spot.

8/25 -- Still getting a few shorter stalks of flowers, which is nice to see in August.