And there was day and there was night...

Well, I've finally hit the stage of my seedlings, where I have no room for them all at once under my lights! Last year, I think I already had my metal and plastic put-together greenhouse up outside, and I was kinda hoping the weather would cooperate for me to do that again, but it looks like summer is planning to NOT come gradually this year lol! It's gonna be -10 and then suddenly +20 in the same week i'm guessing!


(and in case you care, i'm predicting a very wet spring as well, considering how dry last summer was and how little snow we had this winter... gotta keep those rivers wet!)

Some of my initial pepper seedlings, which are doing very well! Some tobacco and ground cherry plants to the right, slowly withering from my losing battle with damping off. The ground cherries to the left are doing much better.

So i've officially set up a night-shift with my plants! I am letting my veggies have the day shift (since, it's most likely to be longer, if I forget to make a plant-rotation). I still wonder if the moon has a role to play in our plants growing, so I dont want to gamble my veggie plants on a night-shift, incase it messes them up! Flowers, just flower all summer, and seem to have less of a time clock and life cycle than veggies (or at least I care a lot less about their life cycle). 

So to make the transition, I decided to start it at night time. I pulled my veggie plants out of the plant lights, and put them under a  bed sheet we no longer use, and my flower seedlings got an extra 12 hours of "sunlight" last night. This way the veggies stay right-on-schedule, and the flowers got a 24 hour spurt of light, which can't do them much harm, since I don't care if they "flower early".  I'd rather the flowers get too much light than not enough, in their transition.

Flower plants in the "night rack" currently. The large fan leaves are from the lupines. They are doing well, but I'm battling "damping off" with peroxide on a regular basis. Hopefully they will soon be too big to be affected by it.in the background right, are the few black hollyhocks that made it.  In front, Calendula flowers. Behind lupines and not visible, are some forget me nots that are doing quite well too.

This morning, my darling husband built me two IKEA shelves (simple $15 kind) and this is my "night rack". So when my veggies are done their light-cycle, they will go on the shelves for their night-cycle. I will drape the bed sheet over the night rack the entire time, so the plants experience a true darkness, despite sharing a room with the plant lights.

Tomato seedlings appear to all be up. Lots of varieties to try out this year. 9-12 seedlings of each, to be thinned and likely some damp-off to dwindle them down to the 20-40 plants i'll want to keep

Fun fact: did you know that a plant's stem grows on it's shadowed side? This is how plants bend toward the light. Because the side facing AWAY from the light grows faster than the side that is experiencing sun exposure. So night time, is an important time for plants to do some growing all-around! :) hence the "night rack".

my "Night Rack" Two $15 Ikea shelves pushed together, with an old bed sheet wrapped around it to give the plants a complete darkness for 12 hours.

So far things have been doing pretty well! When the seeds sprout, i'm always worried they look spidery. But as they grow, they gain strength and volume, and seem to hold their own!

The Light Rack, which has the lights at their lowest adjustable placement, in order to keep the light as close to young seedlings as possible.

Curtis actually replaced the ballasts in two of the three racks for me, so that all three shelves are fully functional. So with the Painted trays, new bulbs and two new ballasts, I think we worked it out to have costed us a full $120 for the plant stand...we're still laughing at that price. Brand new this rack is over $800, and used on Kijiji currently it's going for $250. So i'm glad I jumped on this one when I did!! :)

The ikea shelf is metal, and has 4 layers if you count the very top. Each shelf holds one seedling tray. So two shelves is working perfectly for my night rack.

One struggle I am starting to have with my plants, is "Damping-off". This is a fungal infection in the soil that you cannot see. It's not a surface mould, but something smaller than the naked eye can see apparently. It comes from re-using old containers that may have had the bacteria, or from over-watering the plants, or from the plants being over-crowded.

This entire tray has experienced damp off. Note how the plants have withered at the soil line, fallen over, and then the plant dies.  Almost all of my tobacco has died of damping off already. Apparently it's highly suceptable to this. The ground cherries aren't far behind, at about 75% damp off already as well.

Unfortunately, I have done all of the above! You see? having a green thumb is something that takes practice! Here we are, you can learn from my mistakes! :) lucky you!!

Yes, I have over-seeded as you know full well with my snap dragons. I have also re-used all my containers from last year. Along with that, I've likely over-watered, since I'm used to my seedlings geting UV rays from the sun in a window-sill which dries them out MUCH FASTER.  I am learning now that I need to let the flats almost completely dry out before I think of watering them. This will be much easier to monitor, now that I'm moving them all every night.

closer up of the damping off tobacco plants.

And there is a solution for re-using containers, even ones that have mold residue all around their edges! Yes! They can be used!!

Make a solution of 5% bleach to 95% water, and soak the  containers in the solution for about 30 seconds to 1 minute. Then place the containers somewhere to drip/air dry. Don't wipe them dry, let the bleach water do it's thing while the containers dry, and you'll be free of last-year's bacteria!

I'm just throwing this picture in here to tick you all off... this was April 3 last year. Everyone in t-shirts, snow gone for a while, lots of puddles, my face already has some sun.... grrrr...

And, as i've said in previous posts, PEROXIDE IS A SEEDER'S BEST FRIEND right now! I'm going to start just mixing it into my watering can I think, to penitrate the soil deeper down. Peroxide consumes bacteria! In the process, it creates air pockets as it fizzles, in your soil. this is super helpful for young tender roots, as they need oxygen too.  The leaves can get a bit of ware and tare from having straight-from-the-bottle peroxide sprayed on them day-in-day-out... if you look at my pepper plants in the first photo, they are a bit leathery-leaved from peroxide spray... but notice, they are alive! lol! So i'll take leather-leaves if it saves the plant!

you can purchase a tiny spritz bottle of peroxide from dollar tree, or simply buy a big jug at the grocery store, and add a TBSP or two or three to your watering can as you water. It wont hurt your plants, I promise!

a close up of last year's lupines, during that thaw we had about a month ago. A small sign of life to come this year! :)

But if you don't believe (As I didn't last year), just test it out on a disposable plant... douse the thing, leaves and all in some peroxide and see what happens to it... Don't drown it for crying out loud, but give yourself a control test so you understand it's not going to hurt your plants. :)

last year's sage plant bark appears to have a tinge of green to it still. I wonder if it'll come back again this year?

Anyways, best of luck!
Until next time, keep those thumbs green!