Over the weekend we visited a nursery. The nursery was running a sale on perennials, and with the new house’s yard begging to finally receive some attention, it was an easy decision to pick some things out. As we were doing so, I reviewed my calendar for planting times. In the past, I always aimed to start seeds for the vegetable garden 4 weeks prior to the average last frost date–which would have been last Wednesday. Crap! I had forgotten to mark my calendar.
But a few days’ wait wouldn’t majorly impact the schedule. And I already had the supplies and seeds (courtesy of the seed vault), stocked. And there was plenty of room under the grow lights, so no big deal. Consulting the spreadsheet I had complied months ago (when we had already argued over what to plant), I simply dropped the seeds into the peat pellets and placed the tray.
It was then that I took some time to poke around under the grow lights and see how things were doing. The lights had long-since been adjusted to maximum height, and the cosmos were growing into the fixture itself. I pulled the stems out of the lights, and behold!
There were multiple blooms, and I had completely overlooked them as they were stuck in the light. So, cosmos do really well indoors. Also, the moonflower finally germinated, the beans are growing although no more flowers, the poinsettia is hanging on, thyme is taking over, and the mint (despite my wife cutting half of it off for use in flavored water) is sending out multiple shoots.
Maybe I’ll experiment with hydroponics next.
–Simon