Trial by Perlite

We went to Home Depot tonight to get a few things.  I had a coupon for $5 off a purchase of $50 that was burning a hole in my pocket.  My plan for today was to try perlite as a seed starting medium.  I saw this on an episode of Wisconsin Vegetable Gardener's weekly webcast.  I thought it was worth a shot.  The perlite is about the same cost as the seed starting soil, so I bought some of both types.  I tried something else.... I put a layer of the seed starting medium down first.  Then, I put the seeds on top of that.  I got some cucumber seeds from my secret santa, so I used these.  Then, I put a layer of perlite over the top of that.  I soaked it down and covered it with a greenhouse cover.  I only turned the light on for the picture.  

You can see my new houseplant on the left.  Since I was able to keep my precious orange hibiscus alive all winter long, I decided to add a palm to the mix.  This palm was on sale at Home Depot for only $12.88, and I was lucky enough to already have a pot for inside the house and some potting soil.  It only took me about 30 minutes to do the whole repotting deal.

Pinterest had some ideas on making your own seed tapes.  I have bought seed tape in the past, and I think that the seeds in it are pretty old and aren't viable anymore.  I have lots of carrot and lettuce seeds, but they are so darn hard to plant outside.  Those tiny little buggers fling all over.  I'm also HORRIBLE at thinning plants outside.  I have the best intentions, but I'm too lazy to remember to get out there and thin them.

So, an easier option for me was to sit down now and pre-thin them by making my own seed tapes.  I started out small.  One type of seed: Blend of Color Carrots.  I've read that you can make these with paper towel for the square foot method, but I didn't do that this time around because I'm going to use them in a smaller space than can take a square foot of carrots.

The steps were easy.  I can see, now, why some people use Elmer's Glue.  I think it would be way easier to get a little dot of glue out of the bottle.  I made my own paste by mixing flour with some water.  I had some really thin toilet paper (that I hate using as toilet paper.... it's TOO thin!) that I decided to use for this project.  Every inch or so, I put a dab of my paste.  I sprinkled two or three seeds on each dot of paste.  I made my strips of TP about two feet long, and put the dot of paste towards the bottom of the toilet paper.  Then, I was able to fold the TP in half, kind of like a sandwich.

You can sort of see the TP fold in the picture above.  I then spread them out over an aluminum pan to dry.  Those babies are still drying, about seven hours later.

When they are completely dry, I am going to roll them up to store them until spring!  The more work I do now, the less work I will need to do when the snow is gone and I can plant things outside.