Seedling Successes and Failures

   We have just had a long run of Ideal Fall Days - crisp, cool, sunny and calm. All the same, life has been busy and most days I have had just a short window of time at the end of the day to get some basic garden tasks done before dark. The fact is I haven't got all my Fall plantings done yet. Then the rain clouds rolled in last night, and this morning I am feeling sorry for myself that I can't get anything done in the garden at all - so instead I am writing about it.

   So far this Fall I have had some successes with gardening from seed but also some failures. The early Fall seedlings went in on time. They were carrot and peas, planted next to each other, and they are looking beautiful. I was worried it might be slightly late for peas, but they lucked out with the sunny weather we've had, and they are thriving. Here is a photo from yesterday - the sun was dropping below the fence line already so the lighting could have been better. The peas on the left hand side are washed out.

   Starting carrot seeds in trays continues to be the best strategy for me - despite so much advice I have read to the contrary. It's really helped me keep rolling with successive plantings, too. My aim is to start a new batch in seed trays whenever I plant out new seedlings - and worry about where I'm going to plant them out later.

   I didn't do as well with my brassicas, I'm sorry to report. I got the seedlings planted too late. In fact, I still haven't planted some of them. If you leave it too late they go leggy and sad. Sometimes they can catch up their growth after planting; sometimes it's too late and they will just stay sickly or die. I've got some broccoli and one collard into the ground so far, and I'm waiting to see if they recover. I only had the one collard to plant in the end; a snail ate all the rest in one night. I've been bringing my seedlings indoors at night ever since. As for the purple mustard, the first round of seeds just failed for some reason. I doubled down and planted extra for a second round and now I have too many seedlings. But they are all at the perfect point to plant out right now - if only I can get them in the ground in the next few days.

  Oh yes and then there is the rocket. I got it planted just a little too late and it immediately went to seed. The convenient thing about rocket, though, is that it will continue making decent sized leaves for a while after starting the process of flowering, and it doesn't go bitter. It does go even more spicy, but for us this is not a down side. I've done a couple of pick-and-come-again harvesting leaves and I love them in everything from salad to pasta to scrambled eggs. 

  There are still a few things going from the Summer garden. There are the runner beans which I grow for dry beans. I have been harvesting pods as soon as they dry out; I was trying to get as many picked as I could before the rain came. And then there are two stubborn capsicum. The things have such a long growing season if you want mature capsicum, not green ones. I decided to grow them outside in the garden beds this year. This is viable in our climate but as Fall hits they start to slow down there growth and I so far I've got three capsicum total off the two plants. It's still feeling well worth it, as I get to pick these impossibly red beauties when there's not much else to harvest at the moment:

     

    There was a break in the rain as I was writing this and I went outside long enough to do the bare minimum: put my seedlings back outside, inspect the plants, pick up a few ripe feijoa off the ground. That was long enough to get soggy so I decided to give it up and take a hot bath. I got out of the bath to my family making breakfast. It's Mother's Day here at the edge of the World and so far it's going very well. We ate breakfast out in the sunroom and watched the rain pour down in the garden. Tomorrow I'll be back at it; today this unstoppable gardener will have to content herself with a cozy day in.