Since I updated anyone who cares on my garden's progress.
I gave up on the cukes after a freak cold snap shocked the crap out of them. I just tore them out and put them out of their misery. The nasturtium also succumbed to that freak cold snap, as did a couple of the basil. However, everything that survived is going to live through just about anything, I think.
Four jalapenos and one habanero. I'm pretty sure the habanero
is going to die because it hasn't grown at all in like...
2 months.
All of my seeds have sprouted and been planted. Yes, even the habaneros! I was expecting a longer wait, but I'm happy to have been misled.
The cukes outgrew their plugs a few days ago, so I transferred them to proper pots. They'll be transplanted to their final growing spots once the weather warms up a bit more.
The cups are there so the cukes don't fall over.
Everything else is growing well. The nasturtium especially has really taken off! Last year they wouldn't even germinate, but this year they grow like crazy. Maybe it was all that therapy I made them go through.
And by that, I mean I need to abort some. It's standard practice to plant 2-3 seeds in one hole, because it gives you better odds of having sprouts. Sometimes, only one will sprout, but sometimes, all three will. In that case, you wait until they're a couple inches tall, and then you kill the weaker ones.
Well, I'm a human being, so I'm naturally inclined to help weak things. And I'm an American, which makes me want to root for the underdog. So it's very hard for me to destroy some of my seedlings.
But unfortunately, Mother Nature demands that I reduce some seedlings out. She's kind of a hardcore bitch. Only the strong survive. But she's been doing this a lot longer than I have, so I guess I have to listen to her. The basil and salvia are still only about an inch tall, though, so I have some time yet to get myself ready for the killin'.
There is something known as "damping off" which refers to several plant maladies, but most commonly is what you call it when a seedling falls over and dies for no reason. It's Sudden Seedling Death Syndrome (SSDS). It's caused by a fungus in the soil or something like that. It happened to many of my seedlings last year because I was ignorant of a few things, and I've lost a couple this year (possibly not to damping off, but they sure did just fall over and croak for no reason). I decided to do something proactive about it, and I made a concoction of mostly water with a bit of hydrogen peroxide mixed in. I mist the seedlings with that, and also water them with it. Hopefully it works.
So, I've determined that if you really want to feel like a gardening superstar, the only thing you need to do is get a cucumber seed wet and set it on a paper towel. That's it.
It's April! The sun is shining! The birds are singing! The snow is melting!
On the Spring Equinox every year, I start getting things ready for gardening. Even though we live in an apartment, I still keep a little balcony salsa garden. Having live plants somewhere in my house is a requirement for my mental well-being. I survived the winter because of my fishtank plants, and now that spring is here, I can have terrestrial plants as well!
I still had a bunch of seeds from last year, so I did the "are they still good?" test. I filled a small bowl with water and dumped the seeds in. Those that floated got trashed. Those that sank got poured onto a paper towel, had extra water squeezed out, and then were place in plastic bags labeled with what kind of seeds they were. All of my seed packets from last year had at least a few that were still good, so it looks like I don't have to buy any seeds this year. Yay!
The plastic bags were stacked on each other and placed in our downstairs bathroom. It's dark and warm in there, and that's what germinating seeds like.
I did all that yesterday. I'm expecting the cucumbers to start sprouting any minute. Last year, they sprouted up out of soil in like 2 days and just went bananas. As of now, there have been no sprouts.
