After being concerned on Thursday about the fact that our peppers hadn't sprouted yet and asking about it at the Hilltown Seed Saving Network that evening, on Friday we had a plethora of sprouts. It was really nice to see them come up, and now we have a lot of sprouts up. If we keep getting sprouts like this we're going to have way more peppers than we need. We really do need to try to get a green house up for more early spring growing, especially for years like this when we are still having snow at this point.
The photo Left and Above are from day 1 of sprouting.In the tray we have planted at the moment is just peppers, so that's 72 pots worth of just peppers between Limon Peppers, Banana Peppers, Red Cap Mushroom Peppers, and Orange Bell Peppers as I mentioned on the 19th. As a note, for soil we're using a locally made organic seed starting mix which seems to be very good for the purpose we need it for, which is obviously starting seeds. We are using Mass Whole seedling mix which we've been getting from Here we Grow.
Even though we've been doing this for three years now I'm still impressed with just how fast seedlings come up and get going towards the lights. The next two photos on the Right and Below Right are from day 2 of growth. Things are a lot less "thready" I guess is the best way I'd put it. As you can see from the lower photo of the same individual seedling, the biggest individual change is the little starter leaves spreading out more. As a note those first little leaves are called Cotyledon, and can't really tell you much about what's sprouting. At least not to my untrained eye. There's also a lot more sprouts coming up on the second day, though mostly still one per seedling pot. Day 3 we were busy all day so I didn't get a chance to get photos of the progress for the day by day. I'll show you why at the bottom to not interrupt the flow too much.
Day 4 though I got another set of photos, and as you can see Below things started shooting up You'll see that over on the left of the image the Limon peppers are filling out, and now have 2 in some of the cells. The dark colored stick are the Banana Peppers are almost all up day 4 when nearly none were up day 2. Next over to the right of the Center break are the Red Cap Mushroom Peppers, none of which had sprouted on the 2nd day, and are now doing well. Finally all the way to the right are the Bell Peppers which had barely started coming up day 2. It looks like a good solid tray of seeds, and I'm probably going to have to split most seedling cells to two pots give the amount of double sprouting thanks to the double planting. Over all, I'm very happy with seeing all of the green, even if inside, and I'm going to be starting more seedlings either this week, or next Monday after the Lady of the House and I get back from selling at a convention this weekend.
As for what we were doing over the weekend to not get photos, we were out and about with the Lady of the Houses's family doing some birthday celebration. Included in that was bringing the Critter out to the Beneski Museum of Natural History at Amherst college where he had a great time. I bring it up because beyond showing the Critter dinosaur skeletons and tracks, one of the really interesting segments of the museum is a soil and rock background on the general area with the history that led to how our general valley area looks. If you're in the area you can go for free, and see some of the natural history of the valley. As a note, even if the sea level were to drastically rise we'd be way above the water line still which ks kind of a fun thing to know.
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