I was rather busy over the weekend that I held off on making an update. I felt Wednesday was rather fitting as it tends to be one of my slower days where I can play catch up on things I’ve fallen behind on. While I don’t intend to make this an every week kind of update that just how they have happened more or less.

Starting Tray

First order of business is how is the starting tray doing? It has appeared for a while now that they are not getting enough sunlight indoors among other things. As you can see from the cover image it’s been another cloudy week. The good news is it has been less cloudy and rainy than last few weeks.

The Bunching Onion column on the left have come in strong and clearly just want more sunlight. While they still are not rooting like I want to transport them elsewhere I’m hoping in the coming week(s) that will happen soon. It’s also been rather clear to me on these along with some of the others I should have planned fewer seeds. Since this was just first iteration I was more interested in seeing how it goes with my own eyes, learning, and moving on from there.

The next two columns are Cilantro. While it has shown some light plant matter I think for the most part they are just not going make it. Perhaps I made them too deep, or I should not have planted so many different kinds of things all in the same starting tray. I might get two out of those twelve to work out and if I have at least something I’m ok with that.

The column of Dill that is running forth from the left has a few success. These just seem to need more sunlight as well. I was really hoping things would have been standing up more and be fuller by now. This is also one of those things I did not want do much research on and just learn and observe as I go.

Finally, the last two columns on the far right of Parsley have a couple that is growing. These were also the first ones I planted where I had issues with how they wanted the seeds prepared (soaked in water) and I was planting things a little too deep into the soil. If I can just have a couple to move on from this point that would be great.

A few days ago I finally left them outside. I had been moving them outside to get some better direct sunlight and then moving them in every time we got a storm or it was just very cloudy. After a while, I just felt I just lack the time to keep doing this.

At this point, if the seeds have not grown up and above the dirt they were sitting around too long trying to germinate in moist soil. As such I would rather try and save what I can than trying to get more of them to grow to risk the health of the other plants.

Next time around I thinks I’ll go with a smaller starting tray or just do less at a time. Mixing and matching this many with different growth rates might have been a bigger issue than I thought. The Bunching Onion came in quite quickly leaving me to remove part of the loose fitting top this starting tray came with to let them grow while trying to keep everything else somewhat under it.

With a better top-down view and more sunlight, it is also just easier to see how everything is going. Next stage will be replanting the Bunching Onion, Cilantro, Dill, and Parsley into some container once they start to develop a better root system. Was hoping this be done by now. I’m also not in much of a hurry since I’ve not picked up anything to really keep them in after this step. Depending how many I get I might just try planting a few in the ground and seeing how that goes and if anything destroys them.

Then There Were Four

Last week I picked up a green pepper plant to add to the tomato, red pepper, and jalapeno that I already had growing outside. With all the rains we have been having it was made very clear early on that they were having issues with getting to much water without a way to deal with it. So I upgraded a few of the planters I had them in along with some other minor changes.

Tomato

The tomato planet was moved into a much larger container where I added a nice little cage for it to grow along as well. This container also has a draining tray at the bottom which has it from being over saturated with water. So far that has been keeping up very well with all the rain. I’ve also planted the tomato a little deeper since I had the room for it in this container.

Red Pepper

As you can see from this red pepper this is why I needed to change the potters that I had them in. Too much water for the plant to handle and nowhere for the water to go. I was just manually dumping out the extra water which caused them to move around a bit and some dirt loss. This one I’ve still not gotten around to replanting, but, I have found a container I think will work. It is at least the only one remaining with this issue. I just need to wait for another good day to not go out in thunder and heavy rains to give it a better home.

It at least has a wonderful white flower on it now. While you can see something was chewing up its leaves I believe I have correct that issue with some spray. I’m not quite sure what was eating them up I’m just glad for now it seems resolved. I also might need to pick something up to help keep these plants a little more strait. Some of them came with little sticks that I thought was just the place I bought them forms way of trying to advertise their name since it was printed all over it. Perhaps they were more important than I thought.

Jalapeno

Is that a jalapeno in that photo? Yes, the first one so far from this plant! This guy has so many flowers on it I might be getting more jalapenos than I was expecting. I’m just shocked by how fast and big the first one is already! Not 100% sure when it is considered “ready” but that is the funniest thing in all of this—learning. With how easy this one has been I don’t ever see the need of buying jalapenos from the store ever again!

This one was also planted in a new planter and the soil has been staying decent. It seems from all the rains I might pour a little more mixing soil in there. The soil has compacted better than my own attempts at removing air pockets.

While some of the leaves on this guy as well are chewed up it does not seem to be getting worse. It will be something I’ll check in on every couple of days just to make sure. Even more so now that there is a wonderful jalapeno growing!

Green Pepper

The new guy and as you can see from the leaves he came with some issues. In fact, the places I’ve been getting these plants from appearing to be dealing with some issues. So I gave him a good spray down hoping that will resolve whatever is causing the white marks on the leaves and some tinny holes I found on some of them when I did an inspection.

This one also has added the benefit of me learning from planting the others first. Unlike the others, he gets to start in a bigger container with a proper tray on the bottom for the extra water to collect into. It seems to be rather happy so far. I can’t wait to see it grow like the others.

Final Thoughts

So far I’ve enjoyed already having a plant to work with over trying start from just a seed. Perhaps with more experience and many more tries, I’ll be able to cut down on the cost and increase my production by going with just the seeds. The end goal eventually takes some of the seeds from what I harvest and try and grow using those.

Been a fun journey so far on this adventure. I’m looking forward to seeing where the months and years ahead from now this leads. Having to be less dependent on stores and all the chemicals they put into things would be nice. These things just take time which everyone these days seems to be rather short on.

Information

Photos taken by @enjar using a Photosmart M627.