Winter Gardening Part II
Andy’s Peppers in the New Trays
As a follow up to my post on Winter gardening, Andy and I did the first of our spring planting today! We experimented with new planting trays and recycled trays. Yesterday, Andy cleaned and sterilized with the 1:9 hydrogen peroxide water mixture and soaked our old trays overnight. Andy’s peppers will be in the new trays that have a plastic dome so they self-water once you give them their first drink. I am using the recycled trays for my Loofahs, Patio Tomatoes and Pickling Cucumbers. My seed trays don’t have the fancy dome which means they will probably take a little longer to sprout.
Before planting the Loofah seeds, I gave them a good sanding with some sandpaper so that they have an easier time germinating through the heavy skin of the seed. I’m thinking I was supposed to also soak the seeds, but I didn’t remember to do that this time which again means they might take a wee bit longer to sprout. What I did do differently this year was I watered the trays from the bottom, I picked that tip up from a Gardeners World episode. You do this in the beginning so as not to disturb the seed once you’ve planted it in the soil. We also picked up special soil that is specific for seedlings so that there is good drainage as well as the needed nutrients for the seeds to get their start.
We bought a second heating mat so now Andy’s various peppers and my Loofah and Patio Tomatoes have their own mats. We have these situated on West facing windowsills in the house, so we can keep an eye on the mats (don’t want to accidently burn down the house or anything like that!) The cucumbers I have in the greenhouse in the garage. This fall we added a shelf in there to accommodate the seedlings so we could start the growing season on time this year! Once the peppers, tomatoes and Loofahs sprout and they no longer need the heating mats we will also move them out to the greenhouse. In addition, we are setting the grow light timer to 12 hours of light verses the eight we have it on now. Andy picked this tip up from a gardening you tube video he found on growing peppers. It makes sense as the days are shorter sunlight wise in the winter than they are in the summer when these veggies are growing. With the extra light, they should in theory not be so leggy as they were last year when we relied on the sun they got from the windowsills.
I was going to plant my salad greens as well but decided to hold off and plant those seeds along with my cutting flowers directly in the ground once we are past any danger of frost. But until then… our gardening experiments continue in the greenhouse as we compare different planting strategies while we wait patiently for spring to arrive!
