Michele Made Me

Baby Plants, Baby!

by

 

Back here, The Boy and I planted a bunch of seeds in our newspaper pots and as promised, here’s an update! Well… some are growing. So far basil, 2 types of tomato, mesclun, cilantro, spinach, zinnia, snapdragon, cosmos, marigold, nasturtium, and a flower garden mix have all germinated and are growing nicely.

Still nothing from the cucumber, rosemary, petunia, ageratum. All of these are older seeds, so naturally they will take longer to break out of their seed coats… We quickly planted them without special treatment, so I may have to crack open my propagation book to see if any need to be coaxed into germinating. The petunia seeds are an experiment. I harvested them myself eons ago so I have no idea if they’re even viable. We’ll just have to wait and see…

The little plants are so cute. So fragile and green. At this stage, once you’ve got actual green babies on your hands, you have to be careful not to over-water them. You don’t want them “damping-off”, dear no. Damping Off is a collection of sly, shifty, and pretty much invisible fungi that flourish under warm, moist conditions and will kill new little plant babies if given the chance. How rude! Germinating seeds have to be kept moist it’s true, but once germinated, ease off on the watering and the seedlings should be fine.

Here’s the link to my handy newspaper pot plant video again in case you missed it the first time.

Edited to Add:  Please note that I’ve used black and white newspaper to make the pots as black ink is made of soy and safe to use around edibles. Coloured newspapers should be avoided as the ink may contain some toxins.

Have a brilliant day!

♥M

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Comments

  1. Catherine says

    How satisfying seeing those little baby plants pop through the soil! I love propogating seeds and plants too and now have a little shade house to put them in till they get strong enough to plant out.

    • Michele Pacey says

      Such a great idea your shade house. I really must to build myself a little cold frame to extend our planting season. I'm going to do that this year!

  2. Little Treasures says

    Michele these are adorable! I am always amazed to see seeds develop and grow and watch fascinated by the life that is creating.

    On another note, I hate raining on your parade, but I keep thinking of all the harmful matter there might be in the newspaper. In the past they used to have heavy metals in the ink (including lead) for printing newspapers so this stuck with me. Maybe they have metal free inks now. When moist, the ink lets out the matter around and the seeds grow/ feed with that. This is in case you want to use the herbs for consumption. I hope you don't mind me writing this. It is well meant.

    • Michele Pacey says

      I've read a number of research papers that affirm that the black ink used in newspaper printing is soy-based and contains no harmful chemicals. The coloured inks do contain some toxins so these should be avoided when making the pots.

      Thanks for the comment Maya.

    • Michele Pacey says

      Thanks Sandra. It's pretty satisfying to make our very own little pots and to grow our own plants as well! It's good for the boy to see this cycle and be part of it.

  5. maria says

    Hi, my name is Maria and I write you from Italy. This plants are so beautiful!! Many compliments for your nice blog!!!

  8. Melinda says

    I have a question for you. I have several pots of plants on my kitchen windowsill right now. I think I may have put too many seeds in my pots, because my basil looks about as full as your snapdragons. My question is, well… What do I do next? I was planning on taking them outside, but then I read that I needed to wait until they got a second set of leaves first. I'm just not sure what I'm supposed to do. Oh, and I've had my windows open for almost 3 weeks, so should they be hardened? Thanks for any help you can give me without seeing my plants. lol

    • Michele Pacey says

      Hey Melinda,

      Here's what I'm going to do with my snapdragons and any other pots in which I have too many little guys growing.

      So, first, yes I'm going to wait until the plants have two sets of true leaves. And then I'm going to decide how many of that variety of plant I want to keep. So for the snapdragons, say, I'm going to keep the dozen biggest ones only and sacrifice the rest. That dozen I will divide and "pot up". That means I will make a new set of paper pots and plant one plant per pot with new potting soil. I will care for these single specimens until I'm ready to harden them off. You must be in a warmer climate. You have to find out what your planting zone is and the last frost date. Count back a week or two from that last frost date and begin to harden off your plants. Now over that week or two before the last frost, place your plants outside for longer and longer spans of time until the last frost date. Once the danger of frost has passed, you can plant your plants out in the garden.

      You may also want to research your plant varieties. Some plants like growing in cooler weather like spinach and peas, and don't need to be kept inside as long as the others.

      I hope that helps. Best of luck to you, Melinda!

  10. Melissa Kojima says

    Yeah! Congrats! Glad I could see them grow! I don't have enough light coming into my place to grow anything indoors, so it's a treat to see these babies! Thanks.

  11. pam says

    So very, very cool to see that you little seeds have begun to grow! Loved the pix! Still have to wait a bit before starting ours – and i can hardly stand it!!!