You know you're a plantaholic when ...

You know you're a plantaholic when you are germinating seeds right next to your bed. I give you the Dirt Gently Nursery for Slightly Fungus-ridden Toilet Paper Rolls:

Yes, this is the flat of toilet paper rolls that I had moved out of my propagation station and onto the top of my fridge due to an incipient fungus invasion. (Edit: I moved the flat to my bedroom because it turns out that the top of my fridge isn't quite warm enough to keep the flat at 20°C, mostly due to the fact that the kitchen and adjoining living room are unheated overnight. Overnight temperatures in that part of the apartment drop down to 8°C. On the other hand, keeping my relatively small bedroom 24/7 at a reasonable germination temperature is far more economical. So no, I did not move the seed flat into my bedroom because I'm crazy :D )

After treating with a sprinkling of cinnamon and watering with chamomile tea, the white fluffy stuff seems to have stopped growing, and some of the seed has even germinated quite vigorously:

The bok choy is going gangbusters, and I can see the moonflower (Ipomoea alba) sprouts unfurling and breaking the surface of the growing medium.

I was always under the impression that monocots had a single seed leaf due to their having only a single cotyledon, and dicots, two. But, the bok choy seems to have four distinct leaves. That's a bit weird ... can someone explain to me what's going on here? Are the four leaves in the picture above actually true leaves, or simply pairs of bilobed seed leaves?

There's hope yet ...

Amidst the fuzzy bits of fungus and sprinkles of cinnamon, I spy with my little eye ... bok choy sprouts!

Toilet paper fail

It looks like my little experiment in seed sowing with toilet paper rolls might be coming to an early end as I spotted fungal mycelia this morning in several cells and on the side of some toilet paper rolls.

Strangely enough, the one plastic 4-cell pack that I did sow is fungus-free.

I think this has to do with the fact that I thoroughly disinfected the plastic pots by soaking in 10% bleach, whereas the toilet paper rolls were not disinfected at all. Also, I think that the toilet paper rolls might still have been too wet even after drying overnight. Instead of bottom-watering the filled TP rolls before sowing, I should have probably dampened the medium, let it dry to an acceptable level of moistness, then add it to the container, then sown. Live and learn.

I'm going to try to save the stuff I've sown in toilet paper rolls by spraying with chamomile tea and sprinkling with cinnamon. In the meantime, I will be moving the rolls out of the germination and propagation station and onto the top of my fridge in an attempt to save the rest of the plants (including the lithops seedlings!) from collateral damage.

TP for my ... seed sowing

I decided to experiment with sowing some seeds in toilet paper rolls this weekend. Aside from my bacopa seeds, it's still far too early to start most veggies and flowers indoors in my zone, but @inhabitingtrees suggested way back last fall that I give growing spinach and carrots indoors a shot. Plus, cabin fever: after my wintersowing frenzy in January, I couldn't stand not sowing anything in February.

I flattened a standard toilet paper roll along the long axis, and then folded it again in half to make a crease. The goal is to create a squarish toilet paper roll after un-flattening it.

Next, I cut notches in each of the four corners, each approximately the length of my fingertip to my first knuckle (roughly 3/4 of an inch, 2 centimeters, or 1 DG. Not sure what this is in cubits, chains, or fathoms). I then folded the resulting flaps over to close off the end of the toilet paper roll.

For ease of manipulation, I took a long rubber band to gang together four prepared toilet paper rolls. It turns out that if I tied off the rubber band by 1 DG, it was just long enough to hold the four rolls together without squishing them out of shape.

I filled each cell with seed starting media. Some scrap paper folded into a funnel helped me minimize the mess. I then poured in about 4 litres of warm water (it was about 50°C) to moisten the medium. After about an hour or so of soaking, the medium was thoroughly wet ... a little too wet. I let the whole thing sit overnight so that the medium was more moist (like cake ... mmm cake) than wet (like a saturated sponge). The medium did compact and slump a bit overnight, though. I used a wooden skewer like a dipstick to check the moisture level.

Also, some of the tubes did not hold their shape well and have already started coming apart. Surprisingly, the tubes from cheaper toilet paper were much more sturdy.

Finally, I sowed the following:

• Spinach, Bloomsdale Long Standing (Sage Garden Herbs): 2 seeds x 4 cells
• Bok Choy (Richters): 4 x 4
• Carrots, Jaune du Doubs (Tree & Twig): 4 x 4
• Cape Daisy, Sky & Ice (Seeds & More): 2 x 4
• Pepper, Jalapeno (Sage Garden Herbs): 2 x 4
• Bacopa, Snowtopia (Thompson & Morgan): 1 x 4
• Datura (Mr. Fothergills): 1 x 4
• Moonflower (Sage Garden Herbs): 1 x 5
• "Datura" (From my mom): 3 x 4
• "Chinese Spinach" (From my mom): a sprinkling

I used a pen cap with notches cut every 1/4" as a dibber

All the datura and moonflower seeds were soaked overnight in warm water. The difference between soaked and non-soaked moonflower seeds is striking; the soaked seeds were prune-like, and had cracked open at the point where the seed used to be connected to the plant (I'm sure there's a technical term for this).

Left: soaked. Right: unsoaked

Not entirely sure what the "Chinese Spinach" is, nor whether the "Datura" from my mom is actually datura, since it looked nothing like what came out of the Mr. Fothergill's package. Guess I'll find out soon!

What species of plant exactly is this Chinese Spinach seed from?

I was rather disappointed in the Bacopa from Thompson & Morgan, especially given how expensive it was ($5 per packet!). There were supposedly 10 pellets in the foil package, but most of them had disintegrated defeating the point of pelletized seed. The foil packaging made it extremely hard to dispense the seed as well; most of it was jammed in the corners and I had to tear the package completely open to get a useful amount of seed out. After this and the lithops disappointment, I don't think I will be ordering from T&M any more.

Crushed

Dirty and stinkin': Damping off and self-watering fail

I am on high alert after losing two egg cartons' worth of seedlings in the germination / propagation station to damping off Thursday.

I think I figured out the causes of the seedlings' premature deaths this morning when I inspected some geranium and other transplants that I had set up last weekend to be self-watering: the area is too humid due to the water reservoirs, and the transplants' soil is a constantly wet. I don't sterilize my seed-starting mix and potting soil (although I do sterilize my pots and tools), so in addition to an ambient temperature that varies between 16 and 20°C, almost all of the ideal conditions for promoting fungal growth are there.

In fact, I saw this morning that the surface of the transplants' potting mixture was covered in tiny white specks, and there were fine white filaments coating the below-soil portion of the popsicle sticks that I was using as markers.

I'm not sure what I should do about this. Except for what could be attributed to transplant shock, the geraniums, potato vines, sedums, and unidentified herby greens look all right. In fact, the herby greens are thriving, if a little leggy from being so far from the light.

The Web did yield some non-chemical techniques for controlling fungus attack which I will be trying:

1. Let the soil dry out
2. Apply ground cinnamon (it's the brown stuff in the pictures above)
3. Water with dilute chamomile tea

In the long term, I will definitely be sterilizing my potting and seed-starting soil in the oven before using it. This involves baking it at no higher than 180°F or 80°C for 30 minutes.

But in the middle term, I'm sort of stuck for a solution to keep the plants in the propagation / germination station happy for all the weeks that I will be unable to water them. Clearly, the combination of medium (straight potting mix) and wick that I'm using in this self-watering setup is inadequate in that it's too moist, but I won't have time to experiment with this before I leave. I'm also wary of re-transplanting them into "clean" containers so soon after having transplanted them in the first place. Perhaps I should ditch the self-watering component, chance not watering the plants for the duration of my travels and let Darwin sort 'em out?

Some resources:

• NoDamp from PlantProd seems to be a popular remedy, but is apparently increasingly hard to find. Art Drysdale explains why (long story short: manufacturer was asked by the federal government to prove efficacy, which they declined to do)
• UMass extension has a nice fact sheet on damping off and an extensive list of chemical fungicides that can be used to control it;
• Dave's Garden also has a nice article on the dreaded damping off
• Organic remedies for damping off and other fungal diseases
• Organic and chemical remedies for damping off and other fungal diseases

Monster self-watering station and post

I wasn't sure how to take care of my plants with the prospect of some holiday travel on the horizon. I needed at least two weeks' worth of watering power. I immediately ruled out my nearby friends and neighbours who, as much as I like them, have less green thumbs than me if that's possible.

I did a brief experiment with AquaGlobes and my chili pepper plant which wasn't very successful. The gadgets were fiddly, dispensed water erratically, the reservoirs were empty within a couple of days, and they made the planting medium kind of soggy. And while the established geraniums might be able to survive two weeks with no watering, I wasn't sure about the less robust plants.

The solution? Turn the propagation and germination station into a big self-watering structure with the help of two 10-gallon Rubbermaid tote boxes, a bunch of milk crates, and some old t-shirts. I'm sort of confident that this will do the job for at least two weeks' absence.

Transplanted all of the ivy geranium and sedum cuttings into plastic pots with torn-up strips of old t-shirts dangling into the filled totes. They appear to be working successfully so far, but I am totally regretting using these particular t-shirts as the grow / computer room smells distinctly of eau de sweaty gym now.

Notable is the fact that the red ivy geraniums put out roots more vigorously than the pink ones, and the cuttings that were growing in perlite / sand mix put out better roots than those growing in potting soil. This, despite the fact that the perlite / sand had virtually turned into concrete.

As for the basil rooting hormone experiment, I think it's safe to say at this point that the untreated basil cuttings are performing the best. They're much more than twice as tall, with stems that are twice and thick, and foliage that is many times bushier than the treated cuttings. I suppose it has to do with the better, more natural root development that I saw in the untreated cuttings.

Untreated cuttings behind, towering over the treated cuttings in front

The Crocus speciosus bulbs continue to send up new flowers even as the first blooms fade. I'm amazed. It's disappointing that it looks like the Sterbergia lutea and saffron crocus bulbs decided not to bloom this year, but it looks like the Sterbergia wasn't being lazy: I see new leaves poking out of the soil in places where I definitely did not plant any bulbs. I'm looking forward to many blooms next fall from this one.

Did some rearranging on the balcony and added some bags of fallen leaves to try to protect the cedar planters that contain the fall and spring bulbs from the worst of the winter. Hopefully this works.

Just for fun, I decided to stick some cloves of garlic into the soil of the balcony trellis garden. After only a couple of days, I have a forest of shoots. Not sure what I'm going to do with them in the spring, as I plan to change out all of the medium come spring, but if I have room next fall, and considering how dead simple it appears to grow, I will definitely be planting garlic.

Finally chopped down the last remaining sunflower. It hasn't finished blooming, but we had some freezing rain last night that definitely did some damage, and so I cut the flower, composted the stems, and brought it inside.

After an encouraging start, most of the seeds that I'm trying to germinate in egg cartons aren't doing so well. The basil has been showing true leaves for about a week now, but seems stalled and the leaves have turned a little brown. The lone Hungarian pepper sprout of the four I planted is distinctly not green. Strongly suspect that all of it has to do with the lack of humidity (i.e., I forgot to water them yesterday); all except the burdock seeds look pretty sad right now, and none of the jalapeno or datura seeds have even sprouted. Undaunted, I'm trying to use some donut containers. Considering how much seed I've bought for next year, I might cave and buy myself a heating pad and some of them fancy domed germination trays as well.

Got some basil, burdock, as well as some of the aster I collected and blogged about previously planted. Hopefully, they don't die.

(cross-posted from Folia, which doesn't let you have inline photos)