Updated pictures of seedlings and garden beds

  

3/28/11 -- Here is a typical picture of one of my raised beds just after I add equal amounts of peat moss, manure, and compost.  I mix everything in with a shovel.

 3/28/11 -- Here is what it looks like after I have mostly leveled it.  I actually thought it was level until I looked at this picture.

3/30/11 -- This is my ring of onions.  I am going to plant summer squash in the middle.  I bought a bunch of Walla Walla onion starts at the store.  I wasn't going to plant any, because I don't like them, but then I decided they may be helpful with pest control.

3/30/11 -- I stuck all the leftover onions, from making the ring, in with the broccoli, cauliflower, and Brussels sprouts.  Hoping for pest control help here too.

3/28/11 -- I have noticed that the plants indoors have not been leaning to the window so much since I put the foil around them.  Today I decided to see what would happen to them in the shade outside with the foil.  I also used a clear lid to block some of the breeze off of the tomato seedlings.  None of these seedlings had any direct sunlight on them today.

3/28/11 -- See the tomato seedling leaning towards the foil.

3/28/11 -- Here are some herbs leaning towards the foil also.

3/28/11 -- The tall ones are the tomatillos leaning towards the foil.  For the next two days I took the plants outside a little earlier in the day, so they would get direct sunlight and put the foil around them also.  They stayed upright better.

3/30/11 -- I spent the day transplanting, because the roots are coming out of the bottom of the pots and if they are not transplanted soon they will start dying.  Some herbs I transplanted into the little white recycled pots against the door.  Some of the herbs I transplanted into larger pots.  The four front pots will probably not be transplanted again.  These will be easy to bring into the house once winter starts if they are kept in these pots.

3/30/11-- Close up of some of today's transplants.  Picture taken the day after transplanting.

3/30/11-- Another close up of more of today's transplants.  Picture taken the day after transplanting.

3/30/11 -- Another transplant picture.  I recycled containers for all of my transplants.

3/30/11 -- I transplanted basil into 2 containers like this.  Ten basil plants is a good start.  More will be planted.  I will use a lot fresh and dry a lot for spaghetti sauce.  The spaghetti sauce recipe will be on my other blog later this summer.

Using Foil to Reflect Light onto Seedlings

While I was researching different ways to build a solar oven I found an article about what to do with aluminum foil.  One of the things listed was about lining a box with foil and placing a plant in the box to reflect the light onto the plant so it would be more compact.

These tomato plants are so leggy that I thought a foil box may help them.  I really don’t mind them being leggy if the plants are strong, because everything you see will be planted underground anyway.  More about planting tomatoes next month.

So here is how I applied the foil concept to my tomato seedlings.

Lined a box with aluminum foil.

Placed a phone book inside to set the tomato tray on to be closer to the light.

Placed the tomato seedlings on the phone book.

I decided to put my Ottlite light above the box.  If I didn't put the light over the box

then I would have raised the back of it slightly to get more sunlight into the box.

Maybe foil behind the box and over the light will create a better reflection? 

View from the back.  The open side is facing the window.

Pictures Using Aluminum Foil to Reflect Light onto Plants



I have no idea if this will be helpful, but it is worth trying since the bad weather is not allowing me to put the plants outside.  The idea behind the foil is to reflect light back onto the plants and keep them growing more compact.

Foil lined box for the tomato seedlings.

Three foil covered pieces of cardboard pieces on top.  On the bottom is a box I sliced open down one side.  I wrinkled the 4 pieces that I put on the flaps to see if the wrinkles would make more angles to reflect light off of.  I cut the flaps off of the bottom of the box.

I taped the three pieces of cardboard together at the top and slightly angled the bottom edges out.  I also raised the back bottom edge slightly to tilt it towards the window more.

Here are the plants at the west facing window.  I also decided to place a piece of foil from the back of the box up onto the Ottlite light.  More and better reflection?  Time will tell.

Same picture as above with the Ottlite turned on this time.

Here is the box I slit open and wrinkled the foil on the top flaps.  I may shorten this box.  The left side of this picture is next to the west facing window also.

I also covered more cardboard with foil and placed it behind the seedlings under the grow light in the south facing window.

More plants in the south facing window under the grow light.