South Facing Window

For many home gardeners that start their own seeds, the south facing window is the most important place in the house during the late winter and early spring. The south facing windows holds the best light for plants to thrive and provides warmth for the soil. I started a few plants about a month ago to see the germination rate of some seeds I had saved. This is how I found out that my eggplants were a loss, but I have one butternut squash out of three seeds, three cantaloupe seeds out of three, and one pink tomato out of three; the germination rates were pretty good.

It is important to test seeds, one method is: place a certain about of seeds in between a layer of moist paper towels, place the paper towels in a Ziploc. Be sure to write what and how many seeds you place in between paper towels. Store the package on top of your fridge, this is most likely the warmest and least disturbed place in your house. Check the bag in three to five days, re-moisten if the paper towels begin to dry. Once the sprouted seeds have at least visible dicot, first, leaves appear you can determine germination rate. Example: you placed ten seeds in the baggie, seven sprouted. Your germination rate is 70%, this is based on a one hundred percent scale.

The living Pink Brandywine Tomato, I collected the seeds from a tomato I bought from the Delano Mennonite Farmers Market near Athens, Tennessee. Here it is with the seed packets that will hopefully grow as strong as this one, tomorrow is planting day.

I recycled a worm tub from the fishing store in town. These are cantaloupes, also harvested from fruit from the Delano market.

 

An up and personal look at a cantaloupe wannabe. The two leaves on the right are the first leaves, dicot leaves; look for these during the first stage of sprouting.


Top middle: Butternut Squash, left: tomato, bottom middle: cutting of a Wandering Jew. The Coke bottle on the left hold a pretty mum; I love collecting old glass bottles and jars and turning them into vases and what not.

I will be back tommorw to show coverage of my 2011 planting.