Starting Seeds for the Garden
As the summer goes on the satisfaction of seeing blooms in the garden beds makes the memories of sowing seeds even more enjoyable.
After a couple of days the humidity covers are removed and the seedilings are left under the lights. The idea is to grow them on with little stress but not too much coddling. Sooner of later they are going outside, first to the cold frame and then to the garden beds. If they are too tender going out they will be at best set back by stress and at worst killed off by the outside conditions.
May 12 they went out to the cold frame with some questionable dahlia bulbs and a couple of other things. My wife and I had managed to be able to go to England for a while and my daughter was going to check on the house and water the plants. The cold frame was going to be left ajar for her since she could not be up every day.
About two weeks later, here they are in the cold frame. These are some colobine, dahlias, geranium, and a few impatiens. They have done well for having been put earlier into the cold frame than I would have intended.My daughter did a great job but they got too much sun and too much night exposure and I lost a tray of impatiens as well as a few other plants. No harm done and that is why we have nurseries around. There is always next year.
The dahlias from seed got planted in a bed at the front of the lawn and also scattered here and there in the other beds. Most were at least bicolored and some had a pom pom shape. They were all beautiful and prolific bloomers. The bees loved them and a lot came in the house as cut flowers.
One of the geraniums from seed turned out to be a gorgeous white in one of the planters in front of the house. Several others were zonal leafed and colors varied from the white all the way to a deep red.
The impatiens form seed that survived the cold frame were great. They gave me a couple of fantastic pots underneath the trees beside the grden bench and survived the first few frosts until the first frost on October 19. Outstanding for our area. Next year, more. One of the pleasures of starting plants from seed is the low cost allows for learning and trying all over again.
Feel free to make any comments or criticisms, or for that matter to ask questions or just say hi. 