Posted on 01/10/2014 12:20:06 PM PST by greeneyes
Not sure I’d put 1” of water in the tray.
When I used them I put them in a closed bottom tray and just kept them damp from above with a hand held bottle sprayer. I used them to start tobacco plants several years ago. I’d forgotten about that and hubby reminded me. The potmaker got covered up with something in my gardening cabinet and I thought it had either been thrown away or ‘lost’.
I’ve also used empty toilet paper rolls. The cardboard ones. Fold the bottom in on itself after you’ve made a couple cuts with scissors. I put 1 dollop of Elmers glue on the flaps to hold them. Those did fine btw, just like peat pots. Just make sure you cover the top edge with dirt so it doesn’t wick the moisture out of the soil when it gets hot.
I use empty yogurt containers, the small individual ones are great for individual pepper/tomato/eggplant seedlings. Just make sure you get the ones that are smaller at the bottom than the top (I think yoplait ones are the reverse) so the seedling is easier to remove when you transplant.
I’ve use the bigger yogurt/sour cream/ricotta containers for larger seedlings.
I also save the large styrofoam drink cups from drive thrus. Hubby and I get our family to stash those in a box in the pantry and we collect them when we visit. Those don’t usually survive the planting season but they were free and they were going to be thrown away anyways. Ditto the large el cheapo plastic cups from the drive thru. Those sometimes survive several planting seasons.
Even if you don’t use any of these things you might have relatives/friends/coworkers who do and might be persuaded to wash them out and keep them for you in return for produce from the garden. Or for decent seedlings for their own vegetable patches.
I’m not an eco wacko but I am el cheapo.
In my experience, peppers are usually slow to pop up. I usually write them off as no shows, then one day, there’s pepper sprouts.
The last time the engineer was here before I started seeds, he couldn't figure out why I had empty bakery clear plastic containers from the grocery stacked in a corner of the kitchen counter. Told him those were to be trays to sit paper cups in that would have seeds in them. He said he knew I must have a reason. He is not a prepper. He thinks the only danger the country faces is global warming. I still let him stay here when he is going to a conference rather than hitting him over the head and kicking him out for being a liberal.
He is as smart as Einstein was, and he (engineer) was the subject of a Ph.D. study done on him when he was six or seven. He was tested for several weeks during that. I wonder if Einstein would think global warming was our worst danger as the engineer does?
Those plastic containers are great. Sometimes the top will nest in the bottom. I’ll poke holes in the bottom of the top (hope that’s not too confusing LOL) and put a couple pieces of tiny gravel in the bottom of the bottom. I nest them and put water in the bottom. The gravel will keep them from nesting too snugly and the water will keep the stuff in the top damp. I’ll then fill the top with seed starting mix. I use this type of thing to start my stevia. I need 2 such identical containers. Because once I’m done spreading the seeds on top of the mix I take the top from the second container set and cover the first set as a humidity dome. WAY cheaper (as in free) than the bought seed starting trays. Hubby snarfs these from the meeting room/snack room where he works before they go in the garbage. All I do is rinse them.
From your description, I know exactly what you are doing. You are a smart cookie. I ordered Stevia seed but that reminds me they are not here, yet. I need to check and see who I ordered those from and when I ordered them.
I’m not understanding why you’d have seedlings sitting in an inch of water. I watered the newspaper pots just like any other pot - from the top and just enough to keep it moist.
So, if I'm screwing up just mark it down to being a newbie. :o)
Primroses were blooming in the planters at the card lock where I bought gas this morning in NNWest California...
I always have damping off problems with tomatoes when I water them from the top.
/johnny
When I transplanted the 5oz dixie cup seedlings, on some of htem I just tore the bottom off, and stuck the cup in the ground..In your opinion, is that bad, or good, or neutral?
I remove the cup, never done a side-by-side comparison, so I can’t speak to which is better.
If I remember, I’ll do that experiment this year.
/johnny
Beautiful dog. May he rest in peace.
Jed, the better the eggplant, the thinner the skin.
I might be mistaken, but I always took the blemishes on eggplant to be a kind of a bruise - created from wind, sand, the fruit bumping together.
Kind of crazy to look at eggplant growing in January.
I thought if I left the cup intact, it might slow down cutworms, not that I recall having any mow anything down last year.
I’m so sorry. I know too well how it feels. It’s clear that with you, Tank had the best life a dog can have.
Gorgeous plants/pics. Thanks for sharing.
Holy cow. That’s wonderful. I have one that is 11 years old, and it blooms year round.
What a great idea.
Every year, the San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo names a tomato variety as the “Rodeo Tomato”.. They sell the tomato plants at the Stock Show. I think last year,it was Phoenix, an especially heat tolerant variey.
Being impatient, I have been searching the web for any “leaks” as to the 2014 Rodeo Tomato. The seedlings are in greenhouses (Peterson Brothers is one of them). They don’t even have a website. Not even on any Master Gardener websites in the area, even though they’ll be selling them.
It must be the best kept secret because I am not finding any clues on which tomato it’s going to be this year.
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