Homestead Happenings 24.4

Homestead Happenings is a weekly-ish update about what’s going on at The Northfarthing.

Well, weekly-ish is about right. Since the last update, I have started some 500+ seeds. I didn’t want to lose track of anything so I found a free seed starting guide on Pinterest, where I was able to add my last frost date (May 19 – buh) and then it converted a spreadsheet to the dates I needed for starting seeds.

Here is what I will say about this free tool – I am thankful it’s free. I’m using it as a starting point but I’m not married to any of the dates it gives me. It wasn’t clear whether I should enter the 30% frost date or the 10% frost date. Entering the 10% frost date made things seem really late to get started. And since we sell veggie starts, I tend to start a few weeks early anyways, partially for keeping up with the process and partially to make sure plants are very large when it’s time to sell them.

We start seeds by filling a tray with dirt and then sowing the seeds across the top and then covering with a little bit of our starting mix. We label which part of the tray has which kind of seeds.

My kids have asked me LOTS of times why we do this because it automatically includes an extra step – pricking out and putting into the 72 cell-trays and they want to know why. Here’s why:

We choose to sow this way for the germination levels. Now we get to pick the strongest plants to prick out and put into our seed trays, giving us the strongest, best plants for ourselves and anyone who gets their starts from us. It also saves us some space because when we’re starting everything, we only need a few trays until pricking out. And then at pricking out, all 72 cells of the tray are filled.

The only things we sow right into the cells are onions and beets.

So here is what I’ve started and as close to the order I started them in as I can encapsulate here as well as a progress report on how they are doing:

Round One – Feb 10
-Cabbage – We sowed way too many because my helpers hate tiny seeds. I couldn’t bear to throw out so many so I have 72 cabbages. It’s excessive. These have recently been moved to the outdoor greenhouse and seem to like it out there.
-Lettuce – My hope was to get these going nicely and get an early crop in my green house. I’ve gotten to eat a few leaves of lettuce a few times but for sure not what I was hoping for. Have 36+ plants and will sow again. These also just got moved to the outdoor green house.
-Onions – One of the only things we sow directly into the cell trays and we do +/-5 seeds a cell. I trimmed the leaves to force growth in the bulb and will do this again. Will separate out the bulbs and plant, hoping for large onions. Sowed a full tray.
-Luffas – These fickle babies look amazing. The last time I grew these the plants I put in the ground in May didn’t look as good as what I have now. However I still have two months before they go in the ground and a lot can happen in two months. Got 8 sprouts. These have already been up-potted to their final (I think, I could be wrong) size cup.
-Rosemary – The package says “difficult to germinate”. It should read “HA HA Good Luck Sucker”. The first round of these, not one sprouted.
-Snapdragons – Snaps get planted first because they don’t mind the cold. Michigan winter/spring has been crazy weird so I’ve been wanting to plant outside so badly but this week we have 18 degree nights which is why I haven’t. Row covers should keep these loves safe when the time comes.
-Echinacea – I was also hoping to stick some of these in the green house early for some early blooms. And they look great but the warmer temps have me thinking they don’t look great enough. This cold snap should put my life back in perspective for me.

Round Two – Feb 24
-Broccoli – I should have just named this the brassica day. The broccoli didn’t do as well as everything else though so we’ll have to start more but I think I need more seeds. Which I forgot to order. Shoot. Think we got around 20.
-Cauliflower – Did amazing. The beauty of brassicas is that whatever we didn’t prick out became micro greens and they were yummy. Half a tray.
-Chard – I can’t remember the last time I grew chard. It’s so pretty. We kept half a tray.
-Collards – Had some room left in a starting tray and a really old pack of seeds and was thinking maybe a hand full would germinate. These were the first seeds up and the germination rate was so high. We kept half a tray.
-Kale – Last year we didn’t start kale because we over-winter a few plants and ended up having plenty off of those. This year I probably way over did it on the greens but whatever. Half a tray.
-Kohlrabi – The first time someone asked me to explain kohlrabi, I said “imagine if a cabbage and a turnip had a baby”. This to me sounds delicious. This didn’t sound delicious to the other person. We don’t sell a lot of these but we eat a lot of them. So yummy. Kept half a tray. Which is excessive. But whatever.
-Spinach – I have a spinach problem this year in that I am starting 4 varieties. Regular and perpetual went in this day. Perpetual won’t beat the heat like New Zealand that I’ll get going later but it will last longer and has the traditional spinach taste and mouth feel.
-Rosemary – Trying again, this time in two different ways: specialty soil blocks we’re saving for difficult plants and in a cup. The cup is gone so who knows what happened there. Had two sprouts last week. The toddler ripped them out this week and in my lamentation over the 2 sprouts dying I saw I had two more. Now to keep him out of the green house.
-Snapdragons – Flowers wise I’m such a newb and I don’t know quantities that I need so I ordered more snaps and did another round.
-Echinacea – Just want so much echinacea so I did more. I probably will again.
-Eucalyptus – This is for bouquet fillers. I got less than 10 to germinate so I will likely start some more.
-Strawflower – The first flower I loved growing. We save heads for seed. They kind of look like the dandelion fluff. Did a whole tray bottom and got loads. Will likely do again (and possibly again and again) because I have so many seeds.

Round Three – Mar 9
-Basil – The last few years I’ve had pretty mixed success on the basil varieties I’ve tried. I will have to start again because I forgot I bought new seed and started old and it didn’t germinate super great.
-Beets – Yes I can direct sow beets, and I will, but we start them inside for a head start. 3-5 seeds per cell, we’ll plant them in a bunch. Did a whole tray. Need to go back and fill in some holes.
-Celery – Not a single seed germinated. Farmer Matt said he thought celery was tricky. Well, that’s apparently true.
-Dill – Dill is basically a weed at my house at this point. It just resows itself and I let it do what it wants. But I started some anyways.
-Lettuce – I feel like I will regret this one either way. Either I will feel like I don’t have enough lettuce or I have too much. I don’t know what the right amount is I just love fresh salad and I sell maybe 10 plants so the rest is for me.
-Spinach – The first round didn’t do super great so I’m going again (and again and again I think) on spinach varieties for the year.
-Parsley – I’m thinking this didn’t come up either, but it was old seed.
-Rhubarb – This is probably the oldest seed I tried to do anything with and it looks like I have 2 plants. I have a pretty large rhubarb patch but I may add more. I might have a problem. Ha
-Zinnnia – Sowed a whole tray and we’ll prick out everything and then do it again.
-Yarrow – I dream of one day doing all edible and/or medicinal bouquets. Until then, medicinal herbs make great fillers.
-Bee Balm – And they’re just so pretty!
-Calendula – I don’t know if this will make bouquets. It doesn’t have awesome stem length. It does have awesome medicinal qualities.
-Amaranth – Another bouquet filler. It’s already so red even in the sprout. Super cool!

I have a long list of pricking out and more planting to do. It’s almost time to start the main events – the tomatoes, peppers, cukes, and squashes. That’s when it gets really real around here and we max out on space very, very quickly.

Speaking of space, the kids built shelves for the outdoor greenhouse (tour coming soon) and without absolutely maximizing space – which we may still choose to or need to do – we have room for 3500 plants in the cells. We up pot several things to red Solo cups so that brings the number down but that’s so many plants!!

Outside work has revolved around getting beds built – Farmer Matt and kids built 9 6’x5′ boxes the other day. We’re hoping to do up to 7 more but we’re out of wood so we’ll see.

Still clearing brush in the area where the new beds will go. I have just about half of it cleared.

Pruned raspberries. Pruned elderberries and cut starts from those. Here’s hoping it works well.

Started clearing beds and arranging cattle panels where I want them.

Silage tarp and row covers came. We had the most laugh out loud funny experience trying to cut the silage tarp in the wind and place it around the garden to kill weeds. Our kids thought it was a gym class parachute. We really know how to put on a show for the neighbors let me tell you.

And Farmer Matt ordered everything he needs for compost tea making and started feeding all the plants. We saw growth in plants in 24-48 hours especially the rhubarb and garlic.

Speaking of rhubarb, I decided to force some this year with a container over top so the stalks shoot quickly and make tender, sweet stalks. I’m very excited about this.

One third of the peonies have poked out through the ground. That means this week I’m going to need to cover them up with it getting so cold again. I have been checking on them like crazy because it’s just so thrilling that they are up already.

And I wasn’t going to but I decided to order dahlias. This will be a learning year for sure.

The to do list is lengthy but with this cold snap, I moved in the house and decided to catch up on laundry and cleaning and updating the weekly ish updates. Now I need to go start some more seeds.