Setting up the Grow Lights …

Grow lights and heat mat are all set, yay!

Today, I excavated the grow lights and heat mat from the gardening stash in the basement, cleaned them, checked if they still work, and set them up. I still have to find a lid to cover the tray. I started six plants each of Thai hot peppers and Meadowlark kale.

The Thai peppers will go in a large container on my back porch, but I might add a plant or two in the plot. I really only need 2 or 3 plants, but the seeds are two years old, and I want to be on the safe side. For me, peppers and eggplants grown in containers have always been doing much better than those grown in the plot. I think it is because the soil gets much hotter in a container, which those plants seem to love. It can’t be the sunlight exposure as such, as my plot is full sun, and my porch faces south/southwest.

It is my first time growing Meadowlark kale. High Mowing tells me it is a “German specialty with impressive frost-tolerance”, and it is apparently very pretty. All sounds good to me.

Full set-up for now
Update on the leek babies (sown one week ago on February 9)

And so it Begins – Leeks and Ginger

Yesterday, the last of the seeds I ordered finally arrived. So, I started my Giant Musselburgh leek seedlings (in just two regular 2.5 x 2.5 inch square pots). I did not set up grow lights & heat mat yet but instead just put those two pots on a radiator to germinate. I had a lot of seeds left over from previous years and therefore did not have to buy as many this time around. I mostly got a few disease-resistant varieties of cucumbers, zucchini, and kale plus early tomatoes and bolt-resistant spinach. And flowers. We shall see whether the disease-resistant varieties will make a difference. I sure hope so, as I have been having major issues with powdery mildew, which affected curcubits resulting in the plants to wilt and die prematurely. So, it is leeks for now. In a couple of weeks, I will start hot peppers, kale and some flowers.

I also started my ginger yesterday. I bought some organic ginger at Whole Foods making sure it had a lot of “eyes”, from where the new shoots will sprout. I soaked the ginger for 24 hours in water to remove any added growth inhibitors and then placed small pieces on moist coconut coir before covering them with more coconut coir. Admittedly not very photogenic, but here we are.

Ginger before being covered with more coconut coir
Ginger soaking in water for 24 hours
Ginger covered and now sitting on a radiator.