Monday, March 9, 2009

More work on the seed starting...

I've REALLY got to get this going! Big R hasn't gotten the fluroescent tubes back into stock yet so next weekend I'll have to go get some at Ace Hardware.

Yesterday Wola and I went downstairs into the basement to mix up our seed starting medium. Tommy lugged the (soaked) bale of peat, the 2 bags of compost and my vermiculite downstairs so we could work on it right away. I had a rubbermaid bin that I was going to use for the mix... so I cut open the bale of peat and we started scooping!


Saturday we'd made a trip to Target and I found some cool kids gardening stuff! I ended up getting Wola the cutest little cow print mud boots. The boots have eyes and they even have little tails in the back. I also got her a kid-size little red trowel.

So anyway, we scooped peat moss from the bale into the bin using our trowels. We filled the bin about a quarter full of the peat moss, making a "mig meth (big mess)" in the process. Then I dumped half a bag of compost and the little bag of vermiculite in. Then I added in the mycelium inoculant and also the bacterial inoculant I'd gotten from Gardens Alive. Mixed it all together with our trowels (Eleora had fun trying to put the mix back into the peat bale, but I tried to make sure most of the mix stayed in the bin), added a little water to moisten it a bit more.

Then we decided that we were "all deerty" enough so we went upstairs and cleaned up a bit. Now we have our mix prepped and moistened, I'm sure the bacteria and whatnot are growing away. I'll start planting next weekend, hopefully, provided I can get my light bulbs on time.