I kill plants.
It’s a foolhardy endeavour to try to automate a process you can’t do by hand. Let’s practice.
Aim Grow a thing to eat.
EDIT : I intended to keep notes in Mendelevian detail. This was a bit over optimistic.
Seeds
Due to the run on seed sales at the beginning of the corona outbreak, it was very difficult to find seeds. The only retailer was the slightly up market Jekka’s. According to the packets:
Red Mustard - Hardy annual. Height 30cm, spread 15cm. Yellow flowers in summer followed by long seed pods with brown seeds. Dark red, green oval leaves. The whole plant is edible. Seeds used to make mustard.
Red Frills Mustard - Hardy annual. Height and spread 15cm. Yellow flowers in summer followed by long seed pods with brown seeds. Dark red, green oval leaves. The whole plant is edible. Seeds used to make mustard.
Wild Rocket - Hardy perennial often grown as an annual. Height 30cm, spread 15cm. Small yellow 4-petalled flowers. Green deeply divided aromatic leaves.
Mizuna - Hardy annual. Height and spread 18cm. Yellow flowers in summer. Green serrated leaves. Very good cut and come again plant.
Golden Mustard - Hardy annual. Height and spread 15cm. Yellow flowers in summer followed by long seed pods with brown seeds. Golden green narrow indented. The whole plant is edible. Seeds used to make mustard.
I didn’t have any plug trays so I used milk cartons. We are yet to see whether the lack of drainage is an issue.
I opted for coconut coir pods as a growing medium on the basis that it made the least mess.
The pack I bought from ebay has a large variation in size.
We’ll see what difference that might make.
The pods expand on hydration.
Medium
I had a look at various options.
I opted for coco coir because it was advertised as easy, cheap, less messy to alternatives and relatively easy to source.
Sowing
Start: 2020/04/10
A. Red Mustard B. Red Frills Mustard C. Wild Rocket D. Mizuna E. Golden Mustard
The seeds are absolutely tiny. I used tweezers to sow them. Seedballs make complete sense to me now. I would not be surprised if I failed to sow some pods.
Update: 2020/04/13 - Watered
Update: 2020/04/14 - First signs of life!
…
Semi-regular watering later…
A few cartons showed no signs of life. I wonder if I just lost track while sowing and missed them out. A bit dense. Maybe dud seeds. We’ll find out next time.
After meticulously placing and labeling which pod had which seeds, I ended up moving them around, for various reasons, including over zealous watering, into containers without drainage. Insight: label the pod (ie colocate data with object else it will get mangled).
Transplanting
After a few weeks they started looking more than ready to move on/ a bit in need of attention. It was a bit messy, but easy enough, to transplant into pots. After that, they did pretty well.
Thoughts
- It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Plan this better.
- Try other growing media.
- I don’t kill all plants.