Seed Starting in Soil Blocks

3/4" soil blocks; the basil sprouted in 2 days

I love both of my soil blockers, the 3/4" and the 2". They make it easy to start seeds indoors. This picture is a regular nursery flat, recycled, of course, with 200 of the 3/4" blocks. Two of these fit neatly on my germination mat under two 4 foot florescent lights.

(Click the picture to see a larger version) This batch has 4 kinds of basil, 3 marigold varieties (two of which are edible) along with some other herbs and flowers. Some of the seeds are really old and may not sprout. That's why I like doing them in these tiny blocks, if they don't sprout I haven't wasted too much space/time/energy. These tiny blocks are not meant for growing any plant for more than a few days, then they need to move up to the bigger, 2" blocks.

recycled salad container

When moisture and warmth are really critical I make blocks in things like this recycled salad container. I'll remove the plastic lid as soon as the eggplant seeds sprout.

Tomato seedlings germinate in 3/4" soil blocks

On another tray last week I started the tomatoes and peppers, these tomatoes need to move up to bigger blocks ASAP!

If you've never heard of soil blocks before, they are compressed blocks of peat based potting mix. They eliminate plastic pot waste and expense and provide an ideal environment for seed germination. For more information see my three part article on making and using soil blocks, "Seed Starting in Soil Blocks"

No Monocrops Here! May 8, 2009

No Monocrops Here!

May 8, 2009 at 5:41 am 

A mono-crop is what you have when you have a solid stand of just one thing. This is how commercial farming works, just one thing in each field. But nature doesn’t do things like that and neither should gardeners! You get much more production from a given space by planting intensively.
A case in point, this is my strawberry bed. It was planted with strawberries last fall, the plants are in staggered rows, each plant with 12 inches between it and any other strawberry plant. Then I planted bits of different crops to try out over the winter, chervil, carrots, spinach, cilantro, mache, claytonia.  That big bushy clump in the back is the cilantro going to seed. The dainty white flowers are pretty and supply necter to many beneficial insects. And the seeds are the spice you know as coriander.
This is the chervil, also going to seed now. Chervil tastes like a very mild black licorice. I haven’t decided if I like it or not, sort of like cilantro, it grows on you over time.
Here’s a bush bean seedling. After eating up a lot of the greens in the bed, when it got hot I started the beans in soil blocks and put them out in the bed about 6 inches in all directions, more or less, where ever the bed was pretty empty. Strawberries and bush beans grow well together.
and just look what I found hiding out here. This year the few strawberry plants in this bed will barely give us a taste. But this fall the large plants will make runners and by spring the bed should be full of fruit producing plants.