2023 Field Notes

 
 
 
 
 

Sown 4/9
Germination 4/10 (1 day)

Germination counts
4/11, 6pm: 7
4/12, 7am: 13
4/12, 3pm: 24
4/13, 7am: 48
4/13, 7pm: 52
4/14, 7am: 70
4/14, 6pm: 77
4/23, 10am: 73
Final Count After Thinning: 38

4/9 -- Sown into 50 cell, two seeds per cell. (107 total seeds, so 7 cells with three.) Used potting mix, bottom watered immediately afterwards. Didn't use vermiculite to cover this time, instead really thinly spread more mix. This did mean that I found some I hadn't covered properly a little later in the day, I'll be checking again the next couple of days to make sure the seeds are lightly covered.

4/11 -- That was fast! Spotted a handful of these today.

4/14 -- These are coming up nicely now as well, up over 50 germinated.

4/23 -- Germination count above includes every single seed I could see that did something, but quite a few of those aren't viable. Surface sowing these was definitely a challenge, I suspect that's why some of them germinated but didn't take.

4/24 -- Thinned these today. Ended up pulling 31 non-viable seedlings, leaving 38 total on the tray of 50. A lot of these sort of germinated, but maybe were too much on the surface and didn't take? Surface sowing is always a little tricky, I definitely prefer seeds that you bury! In any case, a good set of these remain, a number of them looking very strong.

4/30 -- No issues here. These are interesting plants - pretty leggy right at the start, which reminds me of Dianthus from last year - and was at least part of the reason I didn't do Dianthus again this year...

5/22 -- Transplanted 32 of these into a 4x8 bed. These were tricky to move - very leggy, not very tall, and the growing medium didn't stay together as well as I thought it would, due to the roots not being huge. So honestly I'm not sure how happy these are in general - they're in OK, and three days later (as I write this up) they still seem OK. They really do remind me of Dianthus! Watered them in using high phosphorus fertilizer.

6/13 -- These have been just fine. Interesting, they haven't grown up, they've grown OUT, and actually resemble dandelions. All of them look healthy, will be curious to see what the next phase of growth looks like.

6/25 -- After all that spreading out, some of these are now sending up a flower-y looking stalk, so that's good!

7/2 -- More of these have flower stalks. Definitely not far from seeing flowers.

7/11 -- Starting to see some flowers now - these look like they're going to be a lot of fun.

7/23 -- Nothing super new to report here - more flowers, they're very enjoyable, but not huge. We'll see what the next few weeks bring!

8/5 -- These look largely the same as they did two weeks ago, which is slightly disappointing. If this is all there is, so to speak, I can't see myself doing these again next year.

8/25 -- Nothing to report! Some of these are dying back, the others look largely the same as last update.

9/2 -- These are fading out pretty thoroughly. I did actually pick some for cut flowers this week, and they're a very nice addition to the arrangement. Probably should have done that more this summer!