Tag: growing light

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Scarlet pea process

Scarification of some kind is needed for quick germination of Indigofera miniata. I decided to nick each seed manually.
01/08/2024. The seeds swelled up ready to go within 24 hours! if you look very carefully you can see a few little roots emerging on a few seeds.
01/11/2024. More roots come out after a few days of light!
01/15/2024. These cotelydons (seed leaves) are opening in the container that had a clear lid! Two seed cases had fuzzy gray mold so I picked that off with tweezers the day before.
01/15/2024. This baby is emerging from the six-pack cells. It’s sort of yellow even though we have the grow lights right on them. For the open cells (no cover), I’ve been watering them by flooding the tray so the water soaks up.

I still have more of this species nicked. I think what I’ll do with the rest is plant them directly; they seem to imbibe water very fast which means they’ll probably sprout in spring rains. I forgot to inoculate them with any of the inoculum I bought from prairie moon nursery but I believe you can add it later if you disturb the roots a bit. If this species even needs it. Mysteries.

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01/24/2023 unauthorized entry

I was putting some books on my desk shelf this evening when in my peripheral vision I noticed more purple plant growing light visible than should be. I keep a towel over it to protect our eyes.
I examined the gap in the cover more closely and realized Shackleton was curled up contentedly on the heating pad, which is set to a cozy 85 degrees F. There’s even a bit of dust (spilled potting soil).
Shackleton napping peacefully with the last unsprouted pepper pot, bathed in a purple glow.
Busted, buddy. The nice thing about this tray is that I can slide it out to check on seedlings AND clever cats.
He did a big back arching stretch of casual innocence.
Shackleton emerges from his vacation tray, complete with unnecessary UV exposure. 🙄
Paula moved Shacks back to his actual cat heating pad on the couch. I put a bunch of empty pots in the tray with the one seedling pot and put more up in front of the towel-curtain, as well as a series of inconvenient containers. Hopefully this will persuade Shacks to stick to his heated bed or at least clogging up our amplifier with his hair.
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01/17/2023 first peppers up!

Shackleton and Tuqu are eager to assist in examination of seedlings.
Tuqu the tortie cat sticks her whole head in a recycled yogurt container used as a pot, while Shackleton the gray and white very puffy but still short haired cat looks on.
Three varieties of peppers have sprouted! This kind of help is why they (the plants, not the cats) are going immediately to the cat free guest room.
The Chimayó seedling has extremely fuzzy roots! Maybe because there was humidity trapped by the yogurt container lids? I have removed the lids now so they can get air flow to prevent damping off.
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01/09/2023 indoor lights for basil and seedlings

I got tired of competing with cats for limited shelf space with still-insufficient sunlight. So I got a plant growing light from online! I’m hoping it will perk up the sad basils which have been spending too much time in the garage and are a pain for us to tote in and out of the garage and house for sunny afternoons. This is safely away from cats in the guest room. Once the peppers and other seedlings are up, they will also get this good strong light.
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01/08/2023 pepper seeds

Experimenting with deep pots and shallow soil. These are yogurt containers. Since peppers and ground cherries can grow roots from the stem, as the plants grow I plant to add more soil. This hopefully reducing the number of repotting events that need to occur.