February 28, 2011

I recently got an e-mail asking me what I used as potting soil.  Hmmm.  Surely seems like a good reason to get back to farm blogging.

A little background, I rent three acres about 20 miles from my suburban house.  The backyard of my home hosts our strawberry patch, raspberry patch, a few rhubarb plants, a grape arbor, a few apple trees, a cherry tree, and a few blueberry bushes.  It's also where I plant things that need more care than I can provide up at the farm or things that I want to be able to pick for dinner.  This year's kitchen garden will include lettuces, spinach, zucchini, and eggplants.  Everything else will have to tough it out up at the farm.

So, on to the actual topic.  Living in the 'burbs means covenants and covenants mean no greenhouse (at least no greenhouse when you get narced out by your neighbor...but I digress.)  Since I have no greenhouse but still start all my own seedlings, I must make do.  Fortunately I have a south facing glass paned double door in the kitchen.

In the photo you can see my seedling set up.  The black trays were scavenged from a local commercial greenhouse (the owners were glad to get rid of them - I must have about 200 or so) - the bottoms are perforated which allows for drainage.  Three of them fit nicely on my shelving.  I got the shelving from a farm supply catalog but I've seen these in hardware stores too. 

The lights are simply shop lights which I've suspended from the shelving with light weight chain.  The bulbs are 'plant lights' - nothing fancy - just whatever you can pick up at the local hardware store.  The real plant lights in the catalogs were just a bit too overpriced for my budget.  Anyway - since the shelving is in a south facing door I'm really just looking for supplemental light.

I did splurge sometime back on thermostat controlled heat mats - but you can also make do with heating pads set on low (which I use as well).  You can also see that I have some plant trays sitting on top of the light fixtures - a nice source of gentle bottom heat as well.

For potting soil I use a 1:2:2 mix of soil (dug up from the farm), peat moss, and perlite.  Last year was my first year using actual dirt in my potting mix and - wonder of wonders - I got the best seedlings ever.  Turns out that seeds like dirt!  As you can see in the picture, this years seedlings are loving it!  Those are onions.  They've already started moving outside on warmer sunny days (temps around 40 F).  Pretty soon I hope to move them outside on a permanent basis to make room for the less cold tolerant seedlings.

I've also started spinach but I lost those seedlings because I forgot to water them so I'll start again in a day or two but just leave the trays outdoors so that they can germinate at their leisure.  Same with the lettuces I'll be starting this week.  I have some very nice sturdy greenhouse tables that pull duty all season long as either seedling tables (which can also be makeshift greenhouses with the addition of some plastic) and produce washing and sorting tables and onion/garlic drying tables (when moved into the shade and covered with tarps).

I am meandering so let me just wrap up by mentioning this years fertilizer recipe - soak 1/4 cup alfalfa meal in some water overnight (let the water sit overnight before adding the alfalfa if it's chlorinated water).  Carefully decant the "alfalfa water" into a one gallon container and fill the container up with dechlorinated water.  Add 3 to 4 Tablespoons of blackstrap molasses.  You can find alfalfa meal or pellets at feed stores or pet supply stores.

A great source for more information on seed starting can be found on the Vegan Organic Network:

http://www.veganorganic.net/information-sheets/1-propagation-and-fertilizers