Seedling Lessons Part II

In this continuing saga of seed starting, I left off celebrating and bemoaning my success this year, and sharing the lessons of 2011. Here are a few more things I learned:

5. You'll have to be a bit heartless

When you plant several seeds in one pellet (to compensate for the inevitable duds) you set yourself up for hard choices. After using all the technology and tenderness at your disposal to help your seeds sprout, you will have to let some go. Let’s not mince words. You will have to kill some seedlings. A peat pellet is like a studio apartment, or, more accurately, an efficiency apartment. It won't support more than one plant for six weeks with just three tablespoons of soil. So you’ll have to get out your scissors and cut. Cutting (and this awesome tip comes from my mom) is preferable to pulling out by the roots. When plants share such tight quarters the roots intermingle with one another, sort of like they’re holding hands under the soil. Pulling one will likely disturb the other. So we cut. Here I am cutting a sunflower seedling for the sake of his taller brother.

Which brings me to my next lesson:

6. You’ll also have to be judgmental and petty.
In other words, you’ll need to come up with some criteria for choosing one seedling over another. It’s best to have no tolerance for stunted growth or deformed leaves. Anyone with an equal-opportunity sort of heart will suffer a bit. I did. Or, you could go ahead and create your own patch of misfit plants. Then write a blog post about it and send me the link.

7. You may have to perform minor surgery.
In some cases, there may be no good reason to sacrifice one seedling over another. Like with these two cardinal climber vines.

They were nearly matched in every way. A set of perfect twins (and we know I have a soft spot for twins). They were also spaced widely enough that their chances for survival after separation were good. So I set up my surgical table…. 

Pressed the soil with my finger to firm it up…..

And sliced the pellet like a birthday cupcake.   

I nestled each one into its own four inch peat pot, and packed them with extra soil from spare peat pellets.

 Then I sprinkled on a sincere apology in the form of fertilizer...from a free sample I got at the nursery.

 Finally, I ran the outside of the pot under cool water to prevent it from wicking moisture from the soil (you’re supposed to moisten the pots first, but I forgot).

 Though this surgery procedure is risky and injurious to the roots of both parties, 5 days later, the plants were still alive, and the procedure was declared a success.


8. Good seeds will find a way.
After my seed planting fiasco that resulted in six tomato seeds being haphazardly planted at different depths in a single pellet, I was surprised to find all six germinated and thrived.

That is, until I was forced to cut out all but one. (See lesson number 5)

9. It’s fun to take risks
I love poppies. But my poppy seed packets warned against starting the seeds indoors. The problem, you see, is the seedlings resent the disturbance of transplanting, and often die when moved to the garden. So after reading the warning, like any prudent gardener, I proceeded to plant 14 pellets with poppies. It’s like they triple-dog-dared me not to. And my success will be that much sweeter if I pull it off, see? And, after all, ignoring instructions without the threat of a time-out is one of the few perks of adulthood. Here is a photo of the forbidden poppies sprouting:

Take that, Burpee!


Next Post: The Ghost Chile Project, otherwise known as Man Vs. Misery