Daniel Rischar's blog

Germination

Last night I decided I had better get a move on with my 2006 vegetable and plant growing. since I want to have the plants in the ground by memorial day (the day I normally shoot for, but always miss), I need to start germination now. It actually may be a bit early, but I am trying to get a head start. With the rather mild winter that we had, I am assuming that the soil will be a lot drier than it has been in the past few years (wet soil is the reason I always postpone the planting date).

I still have bunches of seeds left from last year, and decided to order a few more yesterday. I have:

• Tomato
  • Azoychka
  • Black Cherry
  • Sun Gold Hybrid (Cherry)
  • Yellow Brandywine (Platfoot strain)
  • White Beauty
• Pepper
  • Purple Jalapeno (Capsicum annuum)
  • Jalapeno (C. annuum)
  • Chiletepin (C. chinense)
  • Poblano (C. annuum)
  • Big Early Hybrid (Bell, C. annuum)

From the looks of it, my garden will consist of only members of the Solanaceae family which includes tomatoes, peppers, potatos, eggplant, tobacco, petunias, and deadly nightshade (of which I am only growing tomatoes, peppers and eggplant). Hopefully this doesn't turn into a disease magnet.

My Devil's tongue habanero will also be returning for the 3rd summer now. It's getting to be massive, and I have no doubt that it will break 4ft tall and 3ft round this summer (as long as I make sure to harden it off). The main stem is about 3/4" around the base (it splits almost right out of the soil) right now, and looks like a little bonsia tree. It isn't doing so hot in a south facing window of my parents house though so the leaves are a little sparse. I'll probably post pictures sometime next week.

I placed all of the seeds in folded up coffee filters since the sprouts won't be able to work their way into the fibers like they can with paper towells. There is a paper towell between each layer, but only for moisture control.

Once all the seeds had been placed, I stuck the whole contraption underneath the radiator in the dining room and put a probe thermometer into the middle layer. I am trying to keep the temperature at a constant 80 degrees so as to have the best possible germination. The thermometer is set to go off at 85 degrees and hopefully announce to my fiance that it needs moved further away.

I figure that within a week most everything will have germinated (except possible the peppers) and I'll be able to transfer them to Jiffy peat pellets to take root in.

In other news, brewing is slated to begin next weekend on Justin and my "Hello World v1.0" stout.