More Seeds

I only have about 5 echium seedlings left from the ones I planted a few weeks ago. I was inpired by Chico's Projects to give it another try. He has had amazing success growing Echium pininanas so I'm going to try to emulate him as closely as possible. I also got some Echium fastuosum Pride of Madeira.


I ordered some supplies for the chickens from Farmtek and they had some planting supplies as well. I decided to splurge on some flats, trays and covers so everything would fit together.


Farmtek also had little compressed balls of peat moss to start seeds in.

Once they get wet they swell up and get soft.






The seeds are tiny so I used tweezers to place one in every peat ball.

Then the cover went on the hold in the moisture.

Chico's took 6 days to germinate and he got almost 100% to sprout.

Echium Wildpretii Update

My seedlings are starting to look like real plants now. They are still small but are growing lots of leaves.

Some of the weaker ones succumbed to the hot weather but the rest seem to be doing well.

Ps. Chico, I tried to comment on the amazing progress of your pininanas but your blog only accepts comments from members now. You're plants are huge!

Echium wildpretii Update

The Echium are still sprouting. There are 17 now and I think that may be it. Maybe these are ready to get a little more sun. They're under the eaves of my house and only get the afternoon light. You can see them all leaning towards the setting sun.

Echium wildpretii Update

The Echium seedlings are starting to look more plant like. They're getting pointy little leaves more like a mature plant. There are 12 of them now.

Echium wildpretii Update

It's been about a week since my last update and I'm a little disappointed that there hasn't been more action here.


The seedlings that have sprouted seem to be doing OK and are growing but there haven't been any new ones coming up. So far only 6 out of 60 have sprouted. If I only get 6 plants I'll be happy but if I got 60 plants I would be 10 times happier :)

Update: 5/11/11
I'm 3.3% happier. I found two more seedlings this morning.

Seedlings

I planted some squash seeds a couple weeks ago. I ordered a bunch of powdery mildew resistant varieties. I've had pretty good luck with my squash every year but because of our cold nights they always develop mildew halfway through the season. We'll see how these do. I got some yellow zucchini, a couple of hybrid acorns, a fancy weird pumpkin, and my favorite, butternut. They are all winter squash except for the zucchini but even the zucchinis I've grown have over wintered pretty well.


After two weeks the seedlings are just starting to push their way out.



And this is 3 days later. Yowza!

I planted a lot more than I need hoping that I can give some away. I have a lot more seeds stored in the fridge too. The minimum order for each kind was about 250 seeds and so far I've only used about 10 so if anyone is interested in trying these out let me know.


While I was in the seed planting mood I decided to give these Echium wildpretii seeds a try.




I put two or three seeds in each little container and then covered them with a little more dirt. I had about 60 seeds.


The instructions said to cover them with plastic until they germinate. I kind of want to hide them somewhere where I won't have to see them all the time. I'm dying of anticipation.


This is what they look like when they bloom in their second year:

!!
Wish me luck.

Update 5/03/11:

It's been a couple weeks and the squash are still doing well. They are getting their true leaves now. I have to figure out where I'm going to put them. I'm going to make some self-watering containers but I'd like to choose an out of the way place for them. Most of them are bush varieties and not viney but I don't really know what to expect. The first year I grew butternut the whole front yard was covered in it. The vines must have been 35 feet long. I can't image having ten times that amount.

After two weeks I also found this this morning:

It's one little Wildpretii seedling. See it there by the edge of the pot?

By the time I got home tonight there were 4 move just popping out:

They're still not much to look at but I'm encouraged that they're sprouting. I wasn't sure what to expect and was getting a little discouraged that nothing had popped out. I guess the squash took two weeks too. I'm really going to have to work on my patience if I'm going to wait two years for these to bloom.