The Modern Victory Garden

This coming weekend is a fairly big one in my seed-starting schedule.   Mid February is when I start my spring crops of broccoli and swiss chard, and the main crops of celery and tomatoes.   The tomatoes are the biggest part of that mix because I am not only starting seedlings for my own garden, but for my sister’s garden as well.   Over the past several year’s it has become a bit of a tradition that I also gift my staff at work with free tomato (and later pepper) starts.   That tradition started because (at a minimum) I start at least twice as many plants as I actually want to go into the garden.   I substantially over plant (particularly tomatoes) because there are so many opportunities for seedling death along the journey from seed to productive plant – poor germination, seedling diseases, repotting shock, and death from problems once the seedlings actually go into the garden proper.   Not to mention the occasional mishap death such as the time I accidentally tripped while carrying a large tray of beautiful seedlings – flipping them over so they landed upside down and crushed the entire lot of them.   It happens.   Some years you lose a lot along the way, other years hardly any.   So I mitigate my risk by planting at least twice as much as I need and then once I am sure all my needs (and my sister’s) have been taken care, I give the rest of the seedlings away to my staff, co-workers and several friends.   This annual spring plant give away has become so popular that I plant even more than the doubled amount, just to be sure I will not disappoint by not having any extras.         

For 2010 I need 36 tomato plants (composed of several varieties) to cover my sister’s needs and my own.   I will be planting a total of 144 plants (or 2 full trays of twelve 6-packs) to provide for our actual needs, loss protection, and the big plant give away.   In addition, I will also be starting 24 broccoli, 24 celery (2 varieties), and 24 swiss chard plants – basically doubling the amount of each that I actually need.   Combined, I will have three full trays of 72 planting cells each.   In preparation for this weekend, I set the trays out and filled them with the empty plastic starter cells.    

I have enough plastic starter cells for this current wave of seed starting, but am getting very low on them.   I reuse them over and over again, but occasionally they just get so worn out or damaged that I have to discard them.   Apparently, there has been enough attrition that I am getting down to a somewhat low supply of them.   I may have to stop by the local nursery center soon and pick up a few to shore up my inventory again.   As for larger sized pots used later for repotting, I have quite a big stash of those due to the generosity of several people who know I use them and bring me their extras - which I then rinse out and reuse (many times!).

Lots of seeds to get started this weekend, but there are also lots of seedlings that are in the shop from the first couple of waves of seed starting.   The kale and Chinese cabbages that I started in mid December will be moved out to the green house this coming weekend where they will permanently take up residence.   The Merlot lettuce that I planted last Saturday from seeds sent to me by Dan at the Urban Veggie Garden Blog – are showing some really good emergence.   As of this evening (Wednesday), all the cells have at least one plant emerging.   

The super early tomato crop (Siletz) planted on January 22nd is coming along nicely.   They are forming their first true leaves.                       

The onions (Walla Walla and Candy) that were planted on January 17th worried me a little because initially the germination was not strong in two out of the four containers.   They seem to have gotten with the program though and all four trays now have a good stand of onion seedlings in them.

The lettuces (Super Gourmet Blend) and pac choi (Ching Chiang) that were planted at the same time as the onions are also coming along well.                      

Not pictured but also doing well – are the kale (Improved Dwarf Siberian) and cabbages (Tronchuda and Savoy Ace) that I started on January 30th. 

Things get a lot busier from here on out.   The shop growlight set up will be full up with seed trays, the greenhouse will start absorbing the overflow as I shuffle older plants out of the way to make room for the next wave of seed starting, and the garden bed prep tasks will ramp up in preparation for the first early crop plantings.                            

For those of you starting your own seedlings this year, how are things progressing for you?