Just finished potting up all my plug trays of seedlings. Lots of lettuce, broccoli, caulif. and cabbage and FLOWERS for market! Hoping to be able to plant out next week.

We use a lot of paper pots and thanks to my DH who rolled the most of them for me!

So jealous! But for me it would be all flowers! LOL

Very nice!

Karen

Drool, drool, drool!

I know, it's a brand new GH and just in the nick of time! I always did makeshift hoop houses or cold frames or just had all this scattered IN THE HOUSE!

awesome.. lots of hard work there.. I was ok with the paper pots until I tried to harden off.. and a few days later we had a monsoon and they all fell apart.. must not have wrapped enough layers or something .. I had to pick them up with a trowel gently so they wouldn't just fall apart.. was a hard year for sure

OUCH! I have had that happen before. NOT FUN! If they are too wet when I try to take them out of the trays (CRAMMED TRAYS! ) they do the same thing.

yeah.. that was after the year I used a sharpie on my tags.. and they all washed off have to live and learn I guess.. nothing like being a newbie seed grower and not really sure what to plant where.. had 4 types of snapdragons.. some tall some dwarf.. was a mess ... those painful moments are ones you remember and learn from.. now I use a label maker or paint pen

I know exactly what you mean! This year I am using a paint pen but I want to get a label maker. I have the metal tags for in the beds but I can't read any of them anymore and I saw the tags with the label maker. Very nice! So maybe for next year. But then, you have to make them and USE them or it still doesn't work!

I have a tendency to think, I'll REMEMBER and I USUALLY DON'T! I always have lots of "mystery" plants. Guess that makes it interesting!

I did coleus seeds one year in a plug tray, carefully marked because I start seeds for my daughter also and she told me to make sure I labeled so we could tell the tall ones from the shorter ones. I DID. But I didn't have a sprayer and when I watered them, those tiny seeds just washed all over the tray! She was not happy!

yeah.. could be a problem.. the spray bottle for small seeds is on my must have list

I got a nice one after that, works upside down even. But my hand gets so tired squeezing so this year I bought a battery operated one. I like it a lot. But I'm spraying like 15-17 plug trays of 288 each, so you can see why my hand would cramp up!

oh yeah.. I bought a battery operated one for the spray & grow.. works pretty good

I found a cheap sprayer at Wal-Mart that let's me pump it up with a plunger, compressing air. Then I can just press a trigger and get a spray.

But for any larger volume of water, I use my ketchup bottle and mustard bottle, with small holes in the top. And 1/4" drip irrigation tubing fits into that hole tightly, to make an extended spout. I aim a stream water or shake droplets onto the ribs between cells, so the water runs off into the cells without disturbing seeds or seedlings.

Someone suggested food service condiment squeeze bottles for a finer stream.

I label with mini-blind slats and a 0.9 mm mechanical pencil, but I found that even pencil fades after 3 years outdoors.

For labeling rows in an 8x16 prop tray (128 cells), I cut the mini-blind slats in half or thirds. That way, they will support 18" plastic food film for humidity. For these micro-labels, I use a 0.7 mm or 0.5 mm mechanical pencil.

Why a mechanical pencil? It's always sharp.

I really like the condiment bottles; you don't have to exert much pressure and get a nice gentle stream that doesn't disturb the seeds as much.

I bought a bunch of the plastic plant labels. Since they're just for identifying seedlings in the GH (as opposed to permanent plant labels for perennials), I can use them for several years. A bit of fine sandpaper cleans them off for relabeling (also with a mechanical pencil!).

Arlene,

Great greenhouse! Looks huge and so many plants too

that is brilliant.. would have never thought of the condiment bottles!!!

I didn't think of it either! Don't remember who posted it now, but it was one of the Ideas articles.

Gardening Ideas: More Accurate Hand Watering
By ShadyGreenThumb on January 19, 2013
http://garden.org/ideas/view/S...

Wow, that is a great idea! And I already have some because I use them to drop my glue on my seeds when making seed tape. And I'm pretty sure I have irrigation tubing too. I'm going to try that!

I like the mini-blind idea but then I have to do more dumpster diving or freecycling for the blinds first! Ha! I'll have to try the mechanical pencil. I have used china marker but they don't stay sharp AND if you leave them out in the sun they melt and you can't peel the paper off any more. I use Mr. Clean Magic Eraser to erase the plastic labels where needed.

I bought the plastic labels for in the GH stage and for my plug trays, I used a paint pen and marked tray number on the side then number for each row because I planted as many as 12 different kinds of seeds in a tray. then I used a tablet and labeled tray number and corresponding rows and wrote down each type of seed and how many planted. Then when they germinated I added that info and eventually how many total germinated.

Really though, I've been doing seeds for a long time so I pretty much know which ones are fast and which ones are slow,, which ones need heat, which ones don't, etc., so I did try to plant accordingly. And I spaced out things that I had several varieties of, like my coleus (and I didn't wash the seeds out this year!)

The main thing is, I just love planting that seed and watching every day to see if anything has peeked through! Oh yeah, I also have a headband magnifier and a broken dental curette to prod with! I'm pretty extreme!

Wow, Arlene! That is an awesome looking greenhouse, and I'm really envious you are planting out already. We're just barely starting seeds here (5" of snow and ice yesterday ). You also have an adorable garden helper!

Linda