Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
12/31/99 - My indoor garden in the basement is coming along very well. I have four flats, about 100 plants in each, two of white and two of yellow/gold Star zinnias, that are growing nicely under two of the shop lights. Today I began transplanting the Wings begonias; you may recall that these were planted almost a month ago. Even now the seedlings are tiny, but I am transplanting the larger ones--for some reason they always seem to grow unevenly. This is a very tedious job, both because the seedlings are so tiny and because they are planted so thickly that their roots become entangled and are difficult to separate without breaking them. I use a flat with boxes that have only four cells each, but I plant four begonia seedlings per cell, sixteen in a box, 128 in a flat. I planted only half a flat to begin with, but expect to have three or four flats. The impatiens that I planted are now well up and will be ready for transplanting next week. I plan to plant browallia (viscosa) and blue salvia (farnicea "Victoria") seeds in the next few days.
The first of the spring 2000 seed catalogues was in the mail today. As you know by now, I harvest my own seeds, because they represent the flowers I like and that experience has shown grow best in my garden. These seeds are from plants that have done well, by successfully flowering and producing seed here year after year. Nevertheless, I love to experiment with new flowers, so that each year Gertrude and I would select a few new varieties that we do not presently have in our garden. I haven't selected this year's choices yet, but will do so soon and will let you know what I am trying. In addition to the seeds that I gathered last autumn, carefully prepared, and am now planting, I also have seeds given to me by friends and family, and that I gathered myself on visits to other gardens. Part of the fun of gardening or of doing anything in life, for that matter, comes from daring to try out new things, new ideas, new approaches.
In this week's photograph I am trying to show you the lay-out of the "indoor garden" where I grow the flowers that I will be planting in the garden in April/May. In the immediate foreground are three small grow-lights over warming pads, which are rubber mats with electric wires inside. Notice that the seedlings don't rest directly on them, which would dry out the soil, but are on raised wire platforms. To the extreme left (out of the picture) are my washtubs where I wet the seed-starter and fill trays for planting. There are three other tables in this cellar area on which I place trays of growing plants: part of one is to the left and the other two in the background. I start the seedlings in little boxes placed on one of the warming pads, and cover them with a plastic sheet so they won't dry out. As soon as the seeds germinate, I remove the plastic sheet, and as soon as all of the seedlings have all germinated, I move them to one of the other tables where the long shop-lights are. They stay there until they are large enough to be transplanted. You will see more pictures of the "indoor garden" and the plants there as we go through the winter.
1/7/00 - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
12/24/99 - Gertrude's Flower Garden Weekly Diary
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