I have actual seedlings now! At least some of the beans and peas have sprouted, and what seems like All of the seeds I put into one of the egg-cups (I think the seeds were one of the edible flowers, but I'm not sure; the piece of seed that was clinging to one looked long and black, but my efforts at keeping the seeds all properly sorted out once they were planted have been foiled by the fact that said efforts were "write on the side of egg cartons with a regular green pen that wasn't waterproof"). Also the edible flower mix I got from Buchart Gardens. I think the lettuce seeds have gotten eaten or died, though, because I'm not seeing any seedlings in the planter those got dumped in. And if the edible flowers and beans are sprouting, then I'd expect to see some stuff from the lettuce, too. I'm gonna have to figure out how to thin out the Possibly Edible Flower seedlings and repot some of 'em though; there's so many seedlings in there that I kinda don't want to toss most of them if I can repot instead.
you might be able to gently separate them once they have their first true leaves - it'll help you to move them around, try not to squish the stems if you can. they should be reasonably easy to extract from an eggshell I think, it's not fibrous, so they won't have grown through it or anything.
They're going to be a bit, then; they're still in the itty bitty "this is a stereotypical seedling" stage. They're not in an eggshell, though - I put them in the cardboard cups that eggs sit in, in the egg cartons; the thinking was, some of the seeds say direct sow or that the plant transplants poorly, so it'd be better to put them in something where they can be moved to a bigger pot but technically not have been transplanted in the process, and cardboard's biodegradable so it wouldn't hurt anything.
Can I send in pictures and get advice on plantlings later? I'm a little worried about the sweet basil, the tomato turned out to be fine—just needed a shitton more water. Also, I can't put them outside yet, is there a good way to pollinate the tomato?
More things are sprouting! There's a handful of teeny, scattered seedlings poking out of the big wooden planter, and itty bitty "hasn't even unfolded first leaves" seedlings poking out of some of the egg carton cups. Even the corn's starting to sprout! The beans are looking hopeful, and I added some more dirt to the spots where the seeds got uncovered; idk if it'll help much, but I figure that it can't actually do much harm.
ahhh ok, yeah that's a good idea for ease of planting out. less root disturbance. if you wanna separate the seedlings it might be a little awkward, but if u make sure the cardboard is nice and wet then it should be possible to tease them apart. pictures would be neat! the basil might need more light, it's hard to grow food plants indoors for extended amounts of time. the light intensity and duration is way better outside. if cold weather is the problem, you could try putting them outside in the morning and bringing them in at night? tomatoes can be self-pollinated by a light tapping or shaking, which gets the pollen in each flower sort of adequately bounced around. bees help with this mostly by shaking the flower with their movements, but they also facilitate genetic crosses by carrying pollen, which can be useful or inconvenient depending on ur needs. some people apparently use their electric toothbrushes (or vibrators) to pollinate tomatoes :p
Er...the problem is actually Shitty Roommates. We have one who acts like the entire living space is Hers, and we were waiting for her to move out before we tried anything on the balcony. Problem is, it's past the move out date she's been screeching about for months, and she's still here. OOOO okay that's good to know!! I'll try that today, we have some flowers already ^ ^ and I'll post the pictures after I get everything set up for the day!
http://imgur.com/a/zBw54 Here they are! I can try embedding them again later but I epic failed earlier and there are...nine pictures sobs.
I now have zucchini, cherry tomatoes, bottle gourds, 2 kinds of cucumber, lettuce, wildflowers, and hopefully lavender (for some reason I cannot get lavender to grow for me but I love it so I try every year anyway) started on my balcony. Now I just have to solve the issue of not being able to fit large trellises in my smartcar. Once that's sorted out I should have a pretty good privacy screen of climbing plants, and I still have a lot of empty balcony. I'm thinking morning glories maybe?
The peas definitely need potting out, but I'm not sure anything else is far enough along to require it. (Which is gonna make potting out about half the peas Interesting, because out of the three egg cartons I used, only one of them got torn into separate cups; the other two are still full trays. I'll see if damping the dirt helps keep things from spilling out.)
peas have pretty wiry roots, they should be ok with some careful untangling. are you going to plant the individual egg carton cups into the garden? I think that would work out.
The plan is to put everything in containers, since we're renting the place and we're not entirely sure if we're staying past when the lease expires? So making the plants we want to keep as easy to transport with us as possible without the process stressing them to death is a priority there. (We don't currently have plans to move, either, or at least no concrete location we'd be moving to. But Matesprit and I have moved on shorter notice before, so. Containers!) We do have lots of containers and probably enough potting soil (I'm not sure what's left of the bag we used to plant all these seeds will be enough to repot everything on top of that, but it should be enough for at least one or two pots and we can go get more later), and I plan to get stakes for the peas to climb if they need that. (They're bush peas, which I've never grown before, so I'm not entirely sure if they will need poles to climb - but if they do, I can get it!)
Okay, peas have been transplanted! So far, they all look still-alive but I had to do more tugging than I expected; we'll see how they fare tomorrow. I also come bearing photos! Spoiler: Click here for photos The bush peas in their new container! Some finagling was required to get them all (hopefully) sufficiently distant, and we'll see how well they survived the transfer. One of the peas, from a couple days ago, plus a bean and what I think are probably tomatoes. Foreground has the tray with most of the peas, and (to the right) some of the corn. Background has peas, Probably A Tomato, Probably Corn, and what looks like a bean. (Far background has Some Kind Of Herb.) Bean! It's doing much better now - it's actually poking leaves out. Lettuce sprouts. The "probably an edible flower of some sort" seedlings. I'm 75% sure they aren't tomatoes, since I do recall putting the tomato cups next to each other, but that's about all I'm really sure on (besides, y'know, "they aren't beans, peas, or corn"). Itty bitty sprouts in the herb container! The box of Almost Definitely edible flowers, in the foreground; behind it, a cup of Some Sort Of Herb, the square pot is supposed to be basil, I think, and the container behind those is Assorted Herb Mix (still unsprouted at this time, as best I can tell). A closer look at the herb cup. The edible mix needs thinning, probably, or possibly planting out - possibly both. (I'm running into issues of my brain going "aaaa, I don't want to lose anything", which makes it harder; the mix is a packet from Buchart Gardens that I used all of, so I can't exactly replant it if all of something from it doesn't survive the process.)
So I've been obsessed with bonsai since forever and today I impulse bought a rhododendron and a little blueberry so I'm gonna see how that goes! Apparently the rhododendron needs special soil so I ordered some, and hopefully it will be ok in the pot it came in for a couple days. The blueberry had surprisingly few roots, so I hope it's going to be ok.
Ooh. Bonsai are fun. I've only ever had the one little fukien (and it died), but it was really cute while it lasted.
... um technically blueberries need specialty soil too, at least the european cultivars. Luckily the same specialty soil as rhododendron can be used! They prefer a low calcium, acidic (pH 4.0-4.5) soil for the record, intermixed with other materials to ensure good drainage.
The tomatos have taken and are growing, as is the monks cress. the plants in the egg carton haven't shown their faces yet and I think they won't, and there's some new greenery in the miniature greenhouse. I think one of the lemon balm is actually thyme. whoops. dill is also growing. still looking for life signs: lavender, basil, parsley, lemon balm, rosemary, savory, sage
Managed to confirm that the seedlings I suspected are tomatoes are definitely tomatoes. (The writing on the beefsteak tomatoes' cup hadn't worn away completely, and the other ones would be the cherry tomatoes.) The peas aren't dead yet, although I need to put them in something deeper (the pot I picked has a four inch depth and they need eight inches) and something was digging in them last night. I also transplanted the corn, and will probably have to move some of it because I derped and transplanted all of the corn (except for one seedling which I accidentally killed by snapping the stem when I tried to tug it away from its sibling). But that's going to need to wait till I have more pots and more potting soil; the corn needs a minimum of twelve inches of depth, and there was only one pot about that size - which they're now in; the next closest pot in size is probably an inch and a half shorter. And I'm completely out of potting soil now, so it doesn't matter anyways. The basil is finally starting to sprout, and there's more signs of life in the herb egg carton. And finally signs of life in the mixed herb box too. I thinned the mystery seedlings out a bit, while I was at it; they're the ones where I definitely still have whatever packet they came out of, I'm just not sure what seeds correspond to that packet. And the beans are doing good and should probably be repotted soon too. I'd propose going out to get more pots and soil, except today's Sunday and apparently the thrift store that has all the really good pots is closed on Sundays.
@IvyLB oh shit thanks! This is clearly the problem with impulse buying things >.< Do you know if the same plant food works? I think I ordered enough soil for both of them, so I'll repot that one when I do the rhododendron
