I mentioned that my tomato plants are poking themselves out of the dirt. Awesome! Somehow, I am amazed that I don't kill all my plants just by looking at them, the way I used to do in the old days.
The dirt is in canning jars. This is how I've been starting my seedlings for several years now (see this old post with a few more details), and it seems to work just great. I have lots of empty canning jars by March, so what better use for them than to begin next year's cycle of food preparation?
Really, the only variation from a few years back is that now I keep all the jars in a cardboard box, all the better for carrying them en masse outside to play in the sun (and harden them up) once the weather turns warmer. The cardboard box is like their Magic School Bus, that takes them on their field trips to wonderful new places.
I know that indoor seedlings need something like real sun or a grow light if they want to grow big and strong, but I get twitchy leaving a grow light on all day -- after all, I'm the person who walks around behind family members turning off lights when they leave the room. (Yes, I admit it. I'm THAT person).
So last year, I tried to make sure my plants got daily field trips into the backyard whenever the weather cooperated, and that seemed to be enough vitamin D and UV and such to get them ready for their eventual transplanting.
Grow, plants, grow!
The dirt is in canning jars. This is how I've been starting my seedlings for several years now (see this old post with a few more details), and it seems to work just great. I have lots of empty canning jars by March, so what better use for them than to begin next year's cycle of food preparation?
Really, the only variation from a few years back is that now I keep all the jars in a cardboard box, all the better for carrying them en masse outside to play in the sun (and harden them up) once the weather turns warmer. The cardboard box is like their Magic School Bus, that takes them on their field trips to wonderful new places.
I know that indoor seedlings need something like real sun or a grow light if they want to grow big and strong, but I get twitchy leaving a grow light on all day -- after all, I'm the person who walks around behind family members turning off lights when they leave the room. (Yes, I admit it. I'm THAT person).
So last year, I tried to make sure my plants got daily field trips into the backyard whenever the weather cooperated, and that seemed to be enough vitamin D and UV and such to get them ready for their eventual transplanting.
Grow, plants, grow!
I suspect you're growing seedlings exactly like women did a hundred years ago before there were such things as "grow lights." Honestly, how did people get fed before all this fancy, expensive stuff?
ReplyDeleteActually, part of the problem my plants have growing indoors IS that I have new fancy stuff! The windows are "low-e" glass (low emissivity), which save a huge amount on energy costs, but aren't as good for photosynthesis. If I had old, plain glass windows, my plants wouldn't need to go on Magic School Bus rides in April. -MM
DeleteI'm wondering--is it hard to get your plants out of the jars when it's time to transplant them? With the plastic things you can buy seedlings in, they sometimes get stuck, but there are holes at the bottom you can try pushing through and if that doesn't work, the plastic collapses so you can try squishing them out the top.
ReplyDeleteAre there tricks like not watering beforehand or going around the edges with a knife?
Good question! The not watering/knife combo does help (although I use a spoon, so I can scoop under the plant better). But the plants themselves help, too. If I give them enough sun, the tomato plants get a mass of roots that make a "wall" along the glass edge of the jar -- perhaps more like a "bowl". This makes it easier to (gently,gently) pull the tomatoes out of the jar in one clump.
DeleteOther plants, like my peppers and melons, have less of a root system. For those, I scoop it out as much dirt as I can, and transfer them willy-nilly the hole in the ground that I dug. There's almost always some dirt in the jar that I still have to clean out later, but the plant doesn't seem to mind. -MM
Cool, thanks! This all makes sense. (My recent baking of muffins without lines and with and without spraying the muffin cups has clearly colored my thoughts on getting things out of containers!)
ReplyDelete