I sure hope there is never anything calm about seeing seedlings bloom! The anticipation after seeing those first scapes popping up in the bed, the excitement the morning you know that sdlg from the special cross will open for the first time....calm is not in my seedling vocabulary
Getting organized is the key to having all the time you want with the seedlings. Figure out what needs to be done day to day and what should be done if there's time. For me the morning starts at 5 - 5:30, a quick walk through the sdlgs to see what is open or opening. Then back inside for coffee, email and internet. By 7 it's back outside with FFO notebook and camera. Then back inside to get the clipboard with sdlg bed maps, list for keeps, sdlg records and my notebook made over the winter for crosses to make, the camera and my crossing kit. Oh, and the radio. While doing the FFO's earlier I made a note of any open reg cv's I want to use for crosses that day (sticky notes work great as they are movable from one notebook to another). Also note those important pollen parents and kept sdlgs that are open. Then it's time to check out the sdlg beds. I use large yellow string tags tied to the scape to mark my keeps. Their new sdlg number and the cross is written on both sides.
Don't use the red tags, slugs love to strip off the red color and your writing!
The tag info is also written on a list of keeps for each bed on the top of the clipboard. Then I take an image ( or more) of the sdlg and then one of the tag. Makes labeling the images easy later with the sdlg number.and cross info. Toward the end of the season I can look through the images and decide which ones will be kept. The yellow tags are pretty easy to find in the sdlg bed. Sdlg 19-24 is a keeper.
After checking out seedlings there's usually a little time to work on records of older keeps, pull a few weeds and take more pictures before pollen is ready. Then it's cross time. I've used the same "kit" to make crosses for almost 20 years and make anywhere from 6000 - 10,000 seed with 1 - 2 hours of crossing each day during our short season. I'm done with the daily must do's by noon at the latest unless there are visitors which is nearly every day during peak. The kit is a 12" plastic pot saucer, piece of paper, extra fine tip sharpie for white cross tags, pen for writing pollen name, fanny pack ( finally found a good use for one). In the fanny pack are white cross tags, a fine tip sharpie for the yellow sdlg tags, reverse tweezers, large yellow tags for keeps and large red tags for toss - I find it easier to thin the select/keeper bed if I tag them, then I can go back anytime to compost them and it takes the guess work out if they are not blooming when you have time to dig. Just go around and fill your tray with stamens then carry it with you as you make crosses. Don't drop the tray!!!!
Afternoons and evenings are then free to do whatever else should be done.....walk the seedling beds a few more times
In zone 4 if you wait to use sdlgs until you know all the stats you would be 3 or 4 years behind + the 2 - 3 years you wait to see bloom on a sdlg = far to long to be able to make any progress toward your goals. I don't use all new sdlgs, just those really special ones the first year.
Great info in Terry's posts!
"I would rather kill them than send them to you only to find out they could not take moving. It lost, then we just say it was not one we needed. And we have lost some just moving them. Some we could say were special but we just move on. Better to work on and look for the next special one than worry over the lost one. "
Can't wait to see `Put My Picture on the Cover'.
