Sproutin' Update

Finally moved the little sprouts out of the grow room and into the sunny side of the basement. Most of the plants are doing well. There is a little moss/algae growing on the soil blocks, got a few of them too wet and didn't have a fan circulating. That has been remedied.

Below I'll review just how we got to this point. 





NOTE: One commentator (DM) has suggested this little Blithedale romance would end before planting time. The actual Facebook exchange was:

Sky Damon: Until these seeds fail, I'm an urban farmer.

David Murray: So just until spring then.

He could still be right about that.

About a month ago: first sprouts popping out of the 3/4" micro-blocks. These are, front to rear, leeks, onions, shallots, and tomatoes.

Those same sprouts a couple of weeks later. They looked a little too leggy, suggesting they needed more light. I lowered the fixture until virtually touching (and in some cases actually touching) the leaves. They started to do much better.

The next step was to transplant the seedlings from the 3/4-inch blocks into the 2-inch blocks. Some of the plants will be transplanted a second time, into the 4-inch blocks. That will happen this week. (photo from Pottingblocks.com)

After the transplanting it was light, water, and air circulation.

On Tuesday of this week, I moved everything from the grow room to the sunnier southeast corner of the basement. The basement is a bit on the cool side, so we'll continue with the heating mats until we start the hardening off process. Not sure when we'll do that as it's been so friggin' cold.

As you can see, all eight flats were moved to the top racks to get the most out of the natural light. I figure we have about a month to prove Murray wrong about this little experiment.