The 5th Seed Starting – May 1, 2024 @goldenoakfarm

in voilk •  3 months ago

    Larry's new bed crop May 2024.jpg

    Being a cat means definitely knowing where the very best sleeping spots are. I had to sleep in my chair Tuesday night and used the new blanket from the estate sale. Well! Larry decided that was the best thing ever, and spent most of the day sleeping on the wad.

    I wasn’t doing so good, so I stayed inside and cleaned up the kitchen, made breakfast and got a shower, and started prepping for the seed starting. I had 1 tray to wash, and 13 covers.

    Then I started selecting seeds and making markers. I completely forgot to fill out the seed starting charts as I went, even though I had pulled out all the ones we needed. So I had to go back and do that.

    Dining - 5th seed starting crop May 2024.jpg

    The brainfog has been particularly bad over the last few months. I’d counted, twice, how many spots were open for trays. And it looked like I would be one short. I thought we needed 12, it turns out we only needed 10.

    And there were at least 6 extras when we finished. Sigh…

    Porch, north - 5th seed starting crop May 2024.jpg

    Thank goodness my general helper arrived at noon and kept me sorted out. We finished about 2:30PM and then started cleaning up. She started watering all the trays, even the ones already up and in the cold frame. I wiped down surfaces and then ran the vacuum.

    Porch, south - 5th seed starting crop May 2024.jpg

    I also adjusted lights for all the windows.

    Roundtop - 5th seed starting crop May 2024.jpg

    There were, as usual, SNAFUs. I found more flower seeds that hadn’t been ordered, and we ran short of some others. So we’ll have to go to the store for those.

    I also checked the trays that weren’t up yet for things to restart and there were several. Because of the rearranging due to making stock on the porch, things ended up in all kinds of places, not where they belonged. At some point, I’m going to have to try to get like things together so I can find them when I plant.

    New Herb - Row 1, transplanting feverfew crop May 2024.jpg

    The last thing I had wanted to do if we finished early was to dig up the feverfew in the New North garden and transplant it to Row 1, in the New Herb garden. So we got 3 of the big ones out of the New North plus my helper dug up 4 more for herself.

    I will leave some there, but there’s still a whole lot left. I think I will offer them on BuyNothing. We had to pull up a lot of Roman wormwood that had spread into the walkway and feverfew bed.

    Wormwood prunings and feverfew seedheads crop May 2024.jpg

    My helper took the Roman wormwood home to dry for her chickens. She also got some seedheads from the feverfew.

    This is what I started on the 5th seed starting:

    Vegetables:

    Brussels sprouts 6
    Melons 6
    Mesclun 14
    Bell peppers 6
    Kapija peppers 6
    Hungarian paprika 6
    Tomatoes, eating 6
    Tomatoes, paste 6

    Herbs:

    Borage 6
    Fenugreek 9
    Salad Burnet 6
    Yellow toothache plant 9

    Flowers:

    Alyssum 12
    Lobelia 6
    Marigolds 24
    Portulaca 9
    Zinnias 15

    Restarts, others:

    Agrimony (from stratify) 9
    Sweet Cecily (from stratify) 6
    Feverfew 6
    Sweet Annie 6
    Pennyroyal (restart) 6

    Totals:

    Vegetables 8
    Herbs 9
    Flowers 6

    Total started: 188

    I still need to get cosmos and zinnia seed and start those, plus we are low on mesclun seed.

    Firewood - 5th bag crop May 2024.jpg

    My son finally got the 2 bags of firewood stacked, so my brother brought up another bag for him to empty by Friday. That will mean half the firewood is in the shed, for the woodstove.

    On Thursday I need to finish the back 40 for picking up wood. In the afternoon my brother plans to start cutting trees back in the pastures with Tom’s attachment. I will have to help him do that by driving the truck. We aren’t going to pick up the stuff, just get it all cut.

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