Propagation: It has begun!, 4 by jvw

jvw wrote:
OK! It was a long day yesterday. I started by spreading out two old shower curtains as my work space on the floor. Opened my first bag of potting soil and realized I wasn't satisfied with its consistency for starting seeds. It was just a little too chunky (that's what I get for buying the cheaper stuff!) so I headed out to pick up some Miracle Grow which I know is light and fine enough.

Began filling the jugs with the chunky cheap stuff on bottom and topped off with the Miracle Grow. After I had all the jugs filled I took them to the sink where I have a nice spray attachment to water them down. I quickly realized the soil level dropped quite a bit after watering. So I went back and put more soil in all the jugs. Wish I would have watered one or two before I did that! Then I had too much soil in the jugs! Took some out of all! Wow this is a learning experience. It takes a good chunk of time to water 67 jugs!

After I had all the jugs watered I let them sit for an hour to let excess water drain out, and take a break to go for a walk since it was almost 60 out!

Ok time to sow! I used my brand new paint pens and made a label to go inside each jug as well as writting all over the outside of each jug. Gee, wish I would have read about numbering the containers BEFORE I did this. Next year when I reuse my containers I will go to a numbering system and hopefully ignore the writting all over them! LOL. But at least I know before I WS annuals in Feb or March.

For some reason I picked almost all the smallest seeds! My eyes were crossing. After I sowed each jug I punched my two tie holes and closed by threading a piece of yarn. Not ideal but I didn't have any twist ties. I will switch out the yarn after I need to open and close the jugs regularly.

I had one accident where something made me jerk and suddenly there were no Astilbe seeds left in the envelope (the absolute worst tiniest seeds!!). I took my fingers and dragged them across where I thought they might be and then rubbed my fingers in the dirt. Well, I might get something to grow! No biggie as my mom is growing some of most all I have so maybe I can get some back from her.

I put my finished jugs into black crates and set them out. I found out just before I was going to bed that we were supposed to get A LOT of rain overnight and all day today. So I covered the crates with the plastic shower curtains so I don't flood out all my hard work. I'll take the plastic off tomorrow morning.

I didn't finish sowing until 9:30 last night! It ended up being 42 different perennials in 54 jugs. YES I am CRAZY!! I still have some hollyhocks I want to do today but I want to do those individually in coir pots placed in gallons since I haven't had success moving them as seedlings. AND my mom still has probably 60 varieties of seeds yet to send to me. At least some of that will be direct sow annuals. Still much more work ahead. But I do have a system now so it should go a lot faster next go round.

I have everyone at work saving jugs for me and some neighbors. Think I will have enough grown to give back to them for their donations? LOL!!!