Dining Room Grow Op

For once I followed directions on how to grow plants from seeds. I had read all about proper humidity, bottom heat, correct lighting, and soil-less mix..soil-less mix? What the heck is that? I thought that was a little crazy, how can you grow plants in not-soil?! This whole process sounded so complicated and I always thought, "Yeah, whatever, I'll just do it my way and it'll work." And it never did. I was left with floppy, sad little seedlings or 1206's filled with mucky dirt, all of which amounted to a whole lot of nothing. Every year I swore NEVER to sow seeds again, and every year I got sucked into the pretty packages flaunting their pretty seedy stuff at the health food store, the gardening store, the big box stores, the Farmer's market. Every year I was a complete failure at starting my plants from seeds, embarrassing for a self proclaimed "green thumb".

So, this year I took all the seed propagation instructions very seriously, for the first time in my 33 years. I carefully chose my seeds, sucked in again to the flagrantly colorful and enticing packages. Seedy Saturday was like crack for gardeners, I had to restrain myself by carrying only $20 in my pocket. Oh, the stuff I could have bought.....

Then I signed up for a Greenhouse course at my local college. I am the biggest gardening nerd in the class, and I'm fairly proud of it. There I learned the real story about bottom heat, it's not just a rumor or a myth, it's true: many seeds need bottom heat to germinate! My hot water tank is the perfect bottom heater for my wee little seeds. I planted up a storm one weekend, sprinkling my little darlings on my soil-less mix made of vermiculite, peat moss, and fish compost. I covered them up with the humidome and delicately balanced them on top of the water tank. And I waited, and waited, and three days later tiny little babies pushed up through their soil-less mix.

I bought a shop light. I thought I'd have to get my electrical journeyman papers in order to hook up the cool bulb and warm bulb to the fluorescent light fixture and fuss with the ballast, and the hoomijiggy and the thinger. For $25.00 I got me a proper grow light! And it took me 5 minutes to hook it all up! My university degree has not been wasted. I hung my light from the window sill on chains so that I could adjust the height of the light as my green babies grew taller.

I placed my freshly germinated plants on the window sill, less than 4 inches under the light and waited again. I checked on my green babies at least 11 times a day, noticing each green bit that emerged. So it turns out that my "sprinkling" of seeds was in actuality a dumping of seeds. I now have over 70 tomato, 30 lettuce, 30 basil, 9 spinach, 50 mixed flower, a billion alyssum, 3 luffa (at least I have some restraint), and 2 zucchini seedlings. I'm sure there's a few I missed too.

I have now pricked out all the seedlings into 1206's and have transplanted many of them into 4 inch pots. My simple window sill operation has grown to 2 four foot lights on a shelf unit in my dining room. Unfortunately, today I chose to fertilize some of my transplants with organic fertilizer, stinky organic fertilizer. No dining will be happening in my dining room any time soon, the scent of bat poo is simply not that appetizing.

I have no idea what to do with all my plants, my property is tiny...anyone wanna buy some plants?