It’s mid-February here in Maine and the bitter cold that comes with it is ever present. In order to fight the urge to burrow under blankets with the dogs and a heat pad, I started a greens shelf in the newly installed grow closet~ Rather, Mike complained I forgot to get greens at Hanny’s and it was a good excuse to put the closet together and start the grow season. Most of these varieties (chard, lettuce, spinach, kale, bok choy, arugula, and radish) were pretty old so this sow is also doubling as a seed test. Whatever does come up will be eaten, while the ones that don’t are already on my shopping list.
This year, I’ve got a few garden goals that I’m really excited to get into, one of which is growing 100lbs of food. I haven’t really kept great records of past harvests, mostly in the form of Snapchat pictures after harvesting or what I’ve cooked with them, so I don’t quite know how easy or hard 100lbs will be. Traditional producers like tomatoes and green beans will be an easy way to make the numbers go up, while my wild raspberries come and go and I can’t be sure how many I’ve lost to dog foraging. To get a more accurate idea of what this garden will produce, I plan on weighing every harvest and cataloging it all in yet another spreadsheet, as well as journaling and taking photos.
But first, we have to germ test some seeds. If you’re like me, you’ve got seeds coming out of your ears, and there’s a lot of old mixed in with new. 2018 was a long time ago for some of these seeds (carrots, onion, lettuce, spinach, etc.) so I already don’t have faith in those tests, but most of the beans, chard and some squashes should still be viable. This year, the idea of a vertical germination station of sorts came to me so a weird plastic curtain is what I made~
This weird setup was a great way to use a sunny spot and it didn’t seem like the cold window stunted any seeds from germinating. These sets of four and five groups were just taped together and attached to the curtain rod with a binder clip. It became part of my morning to check the seed progress and make notes on what I’d have to order for the year.
As I expected, the chard and pole beans germinated strongly, as noted by the orange X’s over visible sprouts. There were a small amount of 0% germination bags, mostly in the carrot, onion and lettuce mixes I had on hand. After letting them go until last week, I took them down, threw the seeds and paper towels in the compost, and washed the bags in warm soapy water and left to air dry. It was kind of painful in the zero waste part of my brain to use all these plastic bags but germination tests are so important, especially if you want to live out of your garden, so it’s sort of a necessary evil~
Next step is ordering the last of my seed list and waiting for March, when I can finally start sowing of the season. ๐