Marigold Transplant Day and Vego Grow Light Review

 I noticed yesterday that the Marigolds were opening their first true leaves, so today was transplant day before the root systems get too big.

That fluffs two little cells in a tray into a large tray that takes up a whole shelf.

I am fully enjoying the Vego grow light tower.  I have it outfitted with fans on timers.  I have one negative note about the design.  All but the lowest shelf are adjustable to two different distances away from the grow lights.  However - if you keep the top shelf on the highest setting, which creates a perfect hooded area to hold heat and germinate seeds, the lowest light has to be three levels above the tray instead of one or two.  And this is quite a distance if you are growing trays of newly transplanted seedlings that should be about 10" from the light to avoid stretching.  

You can purchase extra trays and extra lights.... but that doesn't solve this particular problem because there is no available shelf on the lower section of the frame to hold the extra tray at the desired height.  So I solved that problem by purchasing an adjustable kitchen shelf.  The adjustable shelf has two height settings so you can even tweak that by another two inches.  

This shelf works perfectly.  With it in place you still have a little storage below it.   And if you needed to you could temporarily add another magnetic light underneath it for low growing plants. I consider this shelf essential, because most of the seed starting season you need to use the top tray at the highest adjustment.  I need it there for five or six weeks, but I need the fourth shelf (bottom shelf) for the second half of the season, another five or six weeks.  The two time periods and conflicting agendas overlap by a couple of weeks.  The clip on fans work perfectly. I've had one of these for years and I purchased three more to match.  The Vego tower comes with hooks that are perfect for hanging a heat mat thermostat.

I still need my older grow lights.  I have two out of the three set up, the Oslo from Gardeners and one of my original florescent fixtures.  This set up badly needs trays to contain water when it drains out of the tray and I have two Oslo trays on order to solve that problem.  Then I will be completely decked out!

Under the Oslo high intensity LED fixture I have my Zinnias and Dahlias.  The Dahlias can be pinched back soon but they are going to have to stay in their cells at least until the Cole crops get planted out freeing up another light because when I start bumping these up, a single tray of cells can become three or four trays of larger pots requiring more lights.  One thing to note is that the plants by the window do not lean towards the extra light coming through the window at all which means they're getting adequate light from the fixtures provided.  That's a good thing and pleases me because I've tried very hard to achieve the best set up .

I bumped the Coleus cuttings up to deep four inch pots and they are taking off, even the ones that had really been languishing in the cool workshop over winter.  They have almost doubled in size this week.  In fact, those big ones can be pinched, making either two or four more new cuttings.

I am also starting my sweet potato slips.  This sweet potato was left over from the 2024 crop.  The second winter they really lose their sweetness and texture but still do not rot.  This one was in a basket in the kitchen and started to sprout on its own, so I potted it up and put it in the window.  These slips are about ready to be broken off and placed in a jar of water to grow better roots.

...and Daffodil season is here.

Getting Ready

 Today was clear and pretty yet cold, not getting up out of the 30s.  I need to start prepping raised beds.  I may start sowing peas as early as this weekend.  Because the ground was so well covered by snow all winter, blocking the sunlight, very few weeds grew.

The bed below was the worst.

I set up the bed for Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cabbages.

The Broccoli, Cauliflower and Cabbages are below, newly transplanted.  They should go out 5 weeks from their sowing date which for these will be around April 18th.  I have a few Romaine Lettuce started to go with them, and more Romaine seeded.

Below are the Ornamental Peppers, five days after transplanting, putting out new leaves and catching up to the Dwarf Tomato plants.

Below are my Dahlia seedlings, the second batch of saved seeds from 2024 singles.  I had so much fun watching them open last year that even though I saved all of last year's tubers, I started more just to see if I get anything different.  On the right of the tray are my Profusion Zinnias.

I used to start Profusion Zinnias from seed way back in the early days of my gardening.  In fact, they were probably the first annual flowers I tackled.  They are a nice short, bushy little Zinnia and I plan on alternating them with white Marigolds around the edges of my Dahlia beds.  The Apricot will border the bed with orange, copper and peach Dahlias and the Cherry will border the bed with the purple, pink and white Dahlias.  Last year I tried the same thing with Celosia, but Celosia are so tricky to transplant I decided to only direct sow my Celosia and try something different for my border.

Profusion Apricot and Profusion Double Hot Cherry

I am growing a tray of white Marigolds to go with the Zinnias.  The first variety is my favorite from last year Vanilla Cream, and the second is a new release from Burpee, another white variety called Star-Spangled in honor of this year's US Semiquincentennial.  Boy, that's a mouth full.

Star-Spangled and Vanilla Cream

I have the tray filled with potting mix and ready for the transplants as soon as they start putting out leaves.  Next week, the first of April, I will start my indeterminate Tomato varieties and then my indoor seeding will be done for the year.

On March 10th I scattered some Pansy seeds in the Strawberry bed and they are already up.

Look at all of these littles babies!

The Pansies I already have growing here are Delta Citrus Mix which are yellow, white and a very few orange, so this year I added more orange and some blue.

Seedling Transplanting

 Winter returned this week, but I don't mind much because...

It is sunny and warm in the workshop

Today was a transplanting day.  After I start my seeds in bulk in smaller 6 packs, one variety per cell so I can fit everything up under the low light fixture and on a heat mat, I have to transplant them into larger trays of cells packs.

I use my tidy tray as a workspace on the counter and have a separate tray for dampening the potting mix.  I have used Pro-Mix soil for my transplants for several years.  I like the dry, compressed bales of Vegetable and Herb mix.  Last year I purchased two regular bags, not compressed, because of cost if I remember correctly, and I was not at all happy with it.  Despite the fact that it was the same formula Organic Vegetable and Herb Mix, it was dampened in the course of production and the darn stuff never dried out.  Ever.  I had all kinds of damping off problems, and the plants were telling me that whatever organic fertilizer was supposed to be mixed in was severely lacking.  I suspect it may have already leached out with the moisture.  I ended up having to repot several things and dumped what was left of the new soil in my compost. 

I have my sprayer full of water, and my fruit tree sprays ready to go when I get the right weather

These ornamental pepper plants were seeded on March 1st.  Some of my other seedlings have already been transplanted, but peppers are slow.  The best time to transplant is when the plants have their first true leaves.

The Cotyledons are the first leaves as they germinate out of the seed.  This stage is just right.

You don't want to wait too long because the root systems will be harder to stuff down a hole.  The easiest stage to transplant is one hair root, but the tipping point is very quick. 

These peppers are sharing a tray with micro and dwarf varieties of tomatoes that were transplanted a week ago but are also slow to develop.  

I noticed a fungus gnat flying around so I put out some traps and caught three right away and two more shortly afterwards.

I am about halfway through seeding this year.  I just started some Marigolds today and in another week or two I will start my indeterminate tomato plants.  So far I am quite happy with my new grow lights.  I am still 6 to 8 weeks away from planting out.

Early Spring Chores

It's time to start the spring garden chores.  

I removed the dead leaves from the strawberries as the new growth is coming in.  I gave them a shot of fertilizer.  Then I sprinkled some more pansy seeds in there to fill in the bare spots and compete with the weeds.

There is already a Citrus Mix of orange, yellow and white pansies.  This white plant is blooming already.  The honey bees are out looking for the crocuses.  This time of year I have to juggle my wire cloches around taking them off of lower risk plants and protecting the yummy Crocuses from both deer and rabbits.  I also go around sprinkling Milorganite fertilizer on anything with new growth.  Critters don't like the smell and it helps to get a few more days out of unprotected crocus flowers and protects the new shoots of Hosta as they emerge.

The Snowdrops and Winter Aconite (yellow) are blooming.  Next will be Hyacinths then Daffodils.

Time to empty the compost tube.  We drag it out to the center and lift it off the pile.  This will still need to be turned for a couple of months to finish composting before it is ready to use.  This has accumulated from last June until fall when I started the tall tube.  The tall tube will be added to until the pea plants come out. 

I removed one layer of surrounding netting from the Pear tree to make it easier for me to get in there and spray with dormant oil and copper fungicide.  Everything is pruned, now I just need a dry day without a March wind so I don't end up wearing it.  I will post about the pruning when that is done.

The other thing I have done is to check on the woody stemmed shrubs. About half of them had lower branches break off from the weight of the snow pinning them down.  I trim the ragged edges cleanly and check for any splits that need to be cut back.  Next we will start edging and mulching.  The lawn is firm enough, but the mulch pile is still frozen.

 

Done Messin' Around - Grow Lights

 Seed starting season is here at last.  I finally took the plunge and ordered a grow light rack. I’ve only had table top lights before and spent a lot of energy scheduling planting times, juggling lights and moving things around. I needed something that freed up my workspace and had more potent lights. I also wanted something that had a little style to it so it could come into a living space without looking too massive or industrial.   I was going to order one from Gardeners Supply but the one I wanted has been out of stock all winter. So I went with the closest thing on the internet and ordered from Vego.

Below is the tabletop grow light I have had for ages.  It is still sold by Park Seeds and takes 20 watt florescent tubes.

24" Florescent Table Top Light

I started my growing career in the dining room with this light and I added a second light soon after.

When that got a little overwhelming with soil in the house, I moved everything to the basement where I could spread out and make a little more of a mess.  The past couple of years I have moved out to our heated workshop.  It has a long counter top and I added a Oslo frame with a high efficiency 24 watt LED light and then some 10 watt LED under counter lights from Amazon.  The Oslo is well made and collapses easily for storage.  I was going to add the four tiered system, but it is still out of stock.

It is so handy to have the plants growing in the workshop.  I have room to store everything there and I can easily set flats outside in the sunlight, or carry them to the cold frame without the hassle of negotiating the basement steps.  But as you can see, I need my work surface to not be full of grow lights and trays of plants.

When it became clear that Gardeners was not going to have the Oslo system restocked in time, I consulted the Google Machine and came up with a similar system from Vego.

I have been aware of Vego for a few years but had never ordered from them.  They are, apparently, very popular with Millennials and their big product is the metal raised bed.  I watched a few reviews on YouTube and this system appeared to check all of my boxes AND was less expensive and on sale. 

Four Tiers

LED Lights

Compact

Customizable

Attractive

It arrived this past weekend.  The packaging was amazing.  Not a speck of plastic or styrofoam in the whole box.  Everything was corrugated or kraft paper, which of course, makes it compostable or at least recyclable.  The steel is a good, heavy gauge, and the powder coating is excellent.  It snaps together with pins and is very sturdy.  Even the trays are well made, and those can be hard to manufacture without warping.  So I am very pleased with it.  

It comes with four 20 watt LED lights that are magnetic and self timing.  The lights have three modes which you choose based on the type of plant you are growing and its light requirements.  If you are starting seeds, you put the light on seed starting mode and move the tray up closer to the light.  At the end of the first day you can put each light on sleep mode and it will turn off for eight hours and then come back on in the morning and repeat the cycle of 16 hours on and 8 hours off.  That way you do not have to purchase a separate timer.

I set my seeds trays on a heat mat and even though the thermostat in the room is set at 55F, during the day with the combination of heat mat and lights, the air temperature near the trays is 69F and the seeds are sprouting after three days.  Right on time.  Now I just need to move my tubs of dahlia tubers somewhere else cool and turn the room heat up to 60 for everything to grow on without a heat mat.

See the little green sprout?  That's a Dahlia.

So far I have micro tomatoes, ornamental peppers, sage, two colors of border zinnias and dahlia seeds starting.  Next will be lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

Today was 55F in the shade with sunshine and no breeze.  We spent time outdoors getting gravel out of the lawns, leaves out of the corners, and sticks picked up.  I cleaned about a third of my strawberry bed and Friday I plan to prune the apple trees.  Garden season has begun!

Out Looking for Trouble

 We finally had a pleasant day with no snow pack so I could go out and look around for winter damage in the garden and landscape.  We have had such weighty snow that everything is smooshed down.  So smooshed in fact that some of my bulbs are pushing new growth up through leaves.

Daffodils coming through Verbascum leaves

The best news is that there is no vole damage.   Last year I had a vole or mouse nesting under the deck which ate all of the roots off of my Prima Ginger Echinacea plants.  I took steps to block them out, and it looks like we did not have a nest under the deck this year.  No damage. 

The Primroses have buds and a few blooms on them.  

Once they get a little air and sunlight they will bloom.  They will be in their prime in early April.

In addition to Primroses, I have a couple of Hellebores that I have managed to keep alive.  I wish that our garden centers would bring these in as perennials so I could plant some more established plants instead of bareroot.  They always look like heck this time of year, but this one is looking pretty darn nice by my garden standards.

Below is the dream they sell you... but it takes years to get them established like that.  I get a bloom or two, but they have not yet been nice enough to bother photographing.  ...someday....

Some of my Heuchera plants look pretty darn nice.

Heuchera Changeling

It is time to prune and spray the fruit trees.  I just need a couple of days of nice weather.  This tree always has a lot of water sprouts in it.  I actually enjoy the pruning process and look forward to it each spring.  The spray part is sort of a hassle, but the pruning is one of the first rights of spring.

Garden time is just around the corner.