2024 Field Notes

Sown 3/17
Germination 3/22

Germination counts
3/22, 10am: 2
3/23, 9am: 31
3/23, 5pm: 73
3/24, 9am: 130
3/24, 4pm: 143
3/25, 8am: 148
3/25, 1pm: 162
3/26, 8am: 170
3/27, 8am: 177
3/28, 8am: 179
3/29, 9am: 180

3/17 -- Sowed two 72 cell trays with pea seeds, two seeds per cell, soaked 24 hours in advance of sowing in room temperature water, per the recommendation on the Johnny's seed packet. Learned my lesson from last year on these and I'm starting them a full month earlier than last year. Intention will be to put them outside around the same time that my outside peas have germinated and are approximately the same size - so thinking early May.

3/24 -- Drama-free week for these guys. Germinated on 3/22, so took five days, and they've been rapidly expanding their ranks ever since. I've kept the greenhouse at 60 degrees to benefit these guys as well. If last year is any indication, this last 24 hours was probably the biggest germination increase but should see additional numbers the next two or three days.

3/30 -- Germination essentially completed over the last couple of days. 180 total, of 288 seeds sown, so 62.5% germination rate this year. That's an improvement over about 56% last year, so I'll consider that a victory! Thinned them today, leaving one per call, which resulted in the untimely demise of about 60 seedlings. Guessing these will be greenhouse bound for another week or two before heading outside. I'll have to decide fairly soon whether or not to pinch them.

4/5 -- Thinned these last weekend, and actually thinned a few more today that have popped up over the last few days. These look outstanding, no issues. I'll need to figure out a planting plan for them but it'll likely be soon, as they're getting BIG, unless I decide to pinch them. They're not tall enough for that yet - supposed to be 6-8 inches, they're more like four inches right now.

4/21 -- This past week, I finally pinched these - but I decided to experiment here too, and did that only to one tray, leaving the other one alone. Pinching was fairly simple - left at least three leaf nodes on each plant, left some of them a little taller than that if the plant was taller (generally did not cut off more than 50% of the plant, that was the rule I used). I'll transplant from both trays and see how we do! I did get these outside yesterday to begin hardening them off, and then foolishly left them outside all night on their first day out. Fortunately for me, these are peas, and as I write this update this morning, they seem fine. Hopefully will get them planted out early this week.

4/28 -- 28 pinched and 28 not pinched planted outside this week into two garden beds. Actually did a first run a few days before but a pretty frosty frost (28 degrees or so) took them out, probably because they hadn't been in the ground long enough. Risk of frost gone now so I suspect this second group will be fine.