going full time into the greenhouse bizz this year.

Get those fish growing quickly!

thanks cricket. cathy4 i have had some of the local "mung" women stopping by to see when i will have them ready. they were even willing to get the catfish out of my pool and buy them. their about 1 1/2 pounds now. so i don't think i'm going to have any trouble selling them. i'll take a pic when the breeders get here.

it might be a few days till i can get on the greenhouse i'm going over to my friends and helping her transplant about 4000 plugs and make about 500 hanging baskets. the my other friend needs help with about 12000 plugs and transplants so will be a little busy next few days. "the work in the greenhouse go on and on"

thats ok the weather man said its going to be 20s and 30s for the next few days anyway.

hay cricket, i saw in one of your pics you have a tractor with a box blade. why don't you come over and level the place for the greenhouse. i'll cook up the steaks. lol

LOL, sounds like a deal to me. But we might fight over who grills cause thats my specialty.

lol ok i'll run the tractor you can grill. cricket just checked out the new pics in your thread making me dream of when i finely get my GH's up. looking good.

i think a couple of different seeds got in with my salvia. one of these seeds is not like the others.

Great picture, gthumb!

So what do you do, then, with all those starts? Separate them into individual pots? One each?

yes i fill it with water so i can get them apart easy the transplant them in to their own pot or into 4 or 6 packs for sale.

How good is your survival rate, doing it that way? Do you lose many - or any?

I'm thinking of re-using the plug trays that I just got all my plants out of....

Gthumb...Using the water is a great idea. I would never have thought of it.

Thanks for sharing. :)

sheryl survival is in the 90 to 100 percent i hardly ever lose any. thanks ice-worm love to help.

Interesting - should really be a space saver, rather than those big trays...

actually the water idea came from above. i was starting to transplants outside and a heavy rain came and went only about 1 or 2 min. then when i started the seedling tray was full of water and i was able to take them apart very easy. been doing it that way from that day on.

i start all my seeds this way now.

What do you know about germinating Herbs?
I sowed some rosemary about 2 wks ago and they have not germinated yet.
Can you sow herbs in an open flat----with good transplant rate? Some mentioned herbs being a picky transplanter.
This is my first year growing herbs------I had many request for them.

i've only done basil had no problems with it. planting more herbs this year to had lots of people wanting herbs at the farmers market. i do know some herbs are very slow germinating but not sure how long is two long. my friend i am helping this weekend has grown lots of herbs from seeds, i'll ask her this weekend for you.

thank you.
My large leaf basil germinated great.
The dill did great
The parsley did so-so.
The oregano did fairly well.
The sage had low germination rate so far.
And the rosemary is a no show.

I'm betting, Cricket - only because rosemary is from the Mediterranean area (sp?) that it probably needs some pretty steady heat to get it to germinate - ? I haven't tried it myself, so this is only a guess.

I've been reading all over about rosemary from seed, and I'm going to try the seed in a paper towel in a baggie method. It seems constant moisture is part of the equation. I will let you know if I have success/failure. By the way, I am really enjoying all of these conversations, thanks for sharing. c4

WhiteBear,

Thanks for this awsome thread. I have been starting all my seeds in flats with inserts (48). I have always had to sow at least 2 seeds per cell. Most of the time I have to pull the smaller of the two. Sometimes I have cells with nothing in them. Seems such a waste. Right now I am going to start some in open flats, and try transplanting them. What is the best time to transplant? And, what's your method?

JB

hay jb thank and the only thing i do is plant the seeds as deep as they are to be in a tray of starter mix or peat "the seeds don't need any thing for food until the first real leaves: but i do water with a worm casting tea "habit" i sow them kinda thick. when the are about 2 weeks or if the start to get leggy i will transplant. i fill the tray with water let it sit for about 10 min. so the soil and roots will let go easy. i take a dowel and press a hole in its new home and press the root ball in with the end of the dowel. be careful not to bend the stem. all the small ones i done transplant i will let them grow bigger and transplant them later. hope this helps "whitebear"

started on the seed starting house to day.

put the ply on the north side and going to put star foam. going to paint all the wood with water sealer

four trusses up one end truss to go.

Thanks again,

I decided instead of open flats, to plant in smaller containers like you do. This way I can keep plants separated better. Hopefully when it's time to transplant I'll be able to put them on the front porch. Right now it's just too cold. I built another light rack yesterday. Now I have 2. Both are in the living room, but Angel doesn't seem to mind.

Pic of angel.

JB

Here's a pick of last years light rack.

And the new one.

no problem. "cute pooch". hay how about some pics of the light rack. you know we all love pics, and as for me i can't live without them lol.

well i typed to slow again lol

cool setup johnny i havent made any out of pvc before might try one.

The PVC makes it easy. It doesn't take that long either.

I actually bought all the materials at one time and the total with lights and bulbs came to $170.00 at lowes.

This is a 5 tier rack that can hold 16 flats.

JB

not bad. not bad at all! and you don't have to worry about rusting lol great job johnny.

well my friend came over with his box blade and leveled the area for me.

leveled. "some what" lol

two trusses up.

these are the shelves that go in it.

and this is the bar for hanging baskets.

well that was all the work i got done on it today. got to get more nuts and washers. tomorrow i will try to get up the rest of the trusses. only seven more on this greenhouse. hope to start the other on in about two weeks maybe. if anyone live close come on over and help. lol "i'm dead tired"