Harvest Monday: March 30, 2015 - On Chitting Potatoes

This is my submission for the weekly Harvest Monday hosted by Daphne's Dandelions where you can see what others are doing with their harvests.  My post is both a reference to last years harvest and preparing for this years.

I guess there is some debate over this topic (to chit or not to chit), but I've always chitted my potatoes to prep them for planting.  This just means to encourage sprouts to form from the eyes.  The sprouts then help to form the stem and eventually the leafy part of the potato plant.

So it seems logical to me that you would want to get a head start on the plant, huh?

I am using the last of my potato harvest from last fall to form the beginnings of this years (I'll need to pick up some Yukon Gold's somewhere as well).  I have several small Blue Russians and Fingerlings remaining (14 and 16, respectively).

Just like last year, the Blue Russians have already started to sprout in the dark, cold room where I store them.  They are a bit far advanced so I pulled off the longest of the sprouts.

This also allowed me to reposition the potato properly in the egg carton so that the most eyes were at the top (I store the smallest ones in egg cartons over the winter so just brought them upstairs in the same cartons).

The fingerlings have just a couple of sprouts.  I've readjusted them to have the best eyes at the top.

They are now in a back room of the house.  I've closed the heat vent to keep the room a bit cooler but they will now have better light exposure and should be good for planting in early May.

Wow, hard to believe I might be planting something in just 4-5 weeks with the looks of the yard earlier!  Perhaps a bit later, we'll see. A few good days of above-freezing temperatures can melt a lot of snow.

First Transplant of Tomatoes: From Peat Pellets to 4" Containers

I decided the time had come to transplant the tomato seedings from their peat pellets to larger containers.  This is when the amount of space becomes challenging - as I move from little teeny peat pellets inside 4-cell seed trays to individual 4" containers.  It pretty much quadruples the required space. In previous years, I had another fluorescent light setup in the basement but found it much too cool and many of my plants got a touch of mold.

But that is the whole purpose of having my new greenhouse - to have most of the start-ups out there.  The temperature during the day is fine, but I need to check night-time temperatures.  Last night was -12 Celsius but it should warm up in coming days.  I'll get the thermometer set up today and check it throughout the week and hope to get the sturdier plants out there by Easter weekend.

In the meantime, they are in the sunny window of my solarium (with plenty of snow still showing outside).

The use of peat pellets means very little transplant shock at this stage.  I don't need to use a fork or spoon (or whatever other people use) to pick a single seedling out of a tray to move it to its new temporary home.  It's so much easier with a peat pellet!  They all (or most) had 2 sets of true leaves which is a good sign that they can be moved into a bigger container - but also the roots.  You can see in this picture that the roots are already coming through the bottom searching for more nutrients:

1) Prepare the 4" container with a good organic potting mix (I just use store-bought) that has been lightly moistened
2) Dig a hole in the center of the potting mix

 
3) Make sure the peat pellet is very moist (I just dip it briefly into a pot of water)

4) Tear open the bottom and one side of the pellet (they are meant to dissolve, but don't always - so I give it some help to ensure the roots can get through)

5) Pop the pellet into the hole
6) Fill in with extra dirt and lightly tamp down so that the seedling is secure in its new space

Because I have both the pellet and the potting mix moistened already, I tend not to water for the first 24 hours just to let the seedlings settle. And that's all there is to it! 

Out of 18 pellets of the Rainbow Heirloom Tomato mix, I came out with 22 seedlings in their new 4" containers.  I always have a hard time killing off the weak ones (especially when they really don't look weak!).  If there are two in a peat pellet far enough apart, I can easily tear the pellet in two pieces and pop them into their own container  hence the 22 out of 18.  Also, because I am using a mix of seeds and I don't really know what is what yet, I tried to keep a variety based on slightly different leaf patterns.  And I also had 4 pellets with generic "GIANT" tomato seedlings; for those I just kept the best 4 as I didn't want too many.  Here are all of the "rejects" (so sad):

Next up should be the San Marzano plum tomatoes, Chocolate cherry tomatoes and some of the peppers, but I think they can all use a few more days.  And now that I have freed up more space under the fluorescent lights, I can move some seedlings from the heat mat (with plastic cover) under the better light conditions (the lavender looks ready for more light).

Hope all is going well with your seedlings!

Seedling Progress

Well, things aren't looking too well on the pepper front.  But I do have some good progress with other plants, so maybe I'll start off with the good news.

After what seemed like forever, the parsley started to pop up a few days ago.  Looking good!

Likewise for the thyme (left) and sage. 

Tomatoes are ready to be transplanted. They are currently in peat pellets - this weekend I'll rip open the bottom of the pellet and just pop each one into individual pots with some good potting soil.

And I have some peppers that are doing OK ... these include Hungarian Hot Wax, one variety of jalapenos and a generic red pepper.

And that's where the good news ends.  What is left in my jiffy greenhouse (on a heat mat) is mostly different varieties of peppers, with maybe a few tomatoes here and there.  Although peppers can take a while to germinate, the fact that some are already looking like healthy seedlings would suggest that the rest are duds (some of these are from brand new seed packets!).  I will start with some fresh peat pellets and reseed this weekend as it's already getting a bit late to start peppers for my area.  I have honestly never had problems like this before, but hey, it's all a learning experience, right?

And I don't know what happened with my lettuce - old seeds, wrong temperature, inadequate moisture levels?  Lettuce is the easiest thing in the world to grow!  But this is all I have after 2 weeks:

And, arrggghh, the rosemary!  Two years ago was the first time I tried growing rosemary from seed.  Very shortly after that I decided never to do it again (see post growing herbs from seed ...not). But that was when I was under the mistaken impression that my rosemary would overwinter here.  Not so the case and I figured even with low germination rates that it's cheaper to grow from seed then to buy several plants each year. But oh ... so frustratingly difficult!  After scattering MANY seeds into this and two other 4-pack seed trays, I have a single sprout - can you see it in the upper right quadrant?  Ugh.  I'll reseed this weekend in the hopes of getting more than one plant out of an entire pack of seeds.  In the meantime, I need to baby this little guy as much as possible!