Hole in the Woods Food for ThoughtJust a minor update to the soil block experiment this week… Sorry, no photos. But, here’s the status of things:
About 50% of the pepper seedlings started in the 3/4″ cubes have already germinated! The first pepper germinated in just 5 days. It seems that not only does using such small cubes maximise the use of the seedling heating mat, but, probably because they’re smaller and heat more efficiently, they also seem to benefit from it even more.
About 20% of the leeks have also germinated. Also, a mouse got to them and dug a hole through the middle of four of them. I hate mice…
I received my 4″ x 4″ block maker, but have not yet tried it. It’s extremely well made, and even our machinist/farmer (and he’s a bit of an artist of a machinist) neighbor was impressed with the quality of its construction. Which must explain the high price… The volume of soil it looks like it would need is staggering, so hopefully I’ll only need it for a handful of plants.
I need to pot up the celery and celeriac seedlings, but they’re also VERY weak and spindly. I think they spent too much time after they germinated and before I got the lights set up, and may not recover. Ug. I’ve never grown celery well, but, then again, it’s difficult to get horribly excited by.
