My seedlings have miraculously survived and thrived despite my tender loving care so far. They are getting their first and second sets of leaves and their roots were spreading way past the peat pods and intertwining in the vermiculite below. I figured it was time to start thinning them and repotting into bigger pots. I had a dozen or so peat pots and several plastic pots for plants that I was giving away to friends and family. Provided they all lived of course. I don’t have extreme faith in my gardening skillz given my past history.

For this project I mixed very roughly 1/3 seed starting mix, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 potting mix. Why? No reason other than I had all three items on hand. I mixed them all in a huge mixing bowl by hand, moistening loosely as I went. Note to self: mix all dry matter first THEN add water.

Then it was just a matter of filling up the pots about half full, inserting the peat podded seedling inside, handling very gently so as not to damage the fragile stems, fill up with more mix and water very gently. I screwed up at least two plants – one by tearing off a very long root when I was lifting it from home base, and a couple by repotting them too early – they still had only the cotyledons up, not any true leaves. However, their roots were escaping the pods and entangling with other roots so I figured they’re better off getting their own pots, but both books are silent on this subject so I can’t begin to guess. If they make it it’ll be a miracle.

To help them deal with any shock to the system I left the blind slats open but down to give them a more filtered light than the full beams, but it turned out it doesn’t matter as it’s cloudy and snowing today anyhow. Calgary rocks.

While I was replanting the seedlings, I thinned all the pods (all tomatoes) where all three seeds germinated. Steve Solomon suggests that when a plant has a set of true leaves thin the seedlings down to two, and when they get two sets of leaves leave only one plant. You want to choose the healthiest survivor – the one that’s the most vigorous and bushy. I just used scissors to chop off the stalk at the base and let me tell ya, it felt like murder. I had no idea how protective I felt of each little plant and to thin felt so cruel. They made it! They grew! To snip the tiny little stem was incredibly hard, and the only thing that allowed me to do it was Steve Solomon’s admonition that in order to do right by each plant you cannot have them competing for resources in any way. That stresses the plant and affects it’s future health and productivity. Nature does the same thing he says, only more so. A wild plant will produce thousands of seeds to compensate for all the ones that won’t make it whether eaten by birds or scattered in a hostile environment. When humans signed on to growing plants we made them a deal: you grow what we need, i.e. bigger roots, tops and fruits, sweeter and more fragile produce, longer harvest, and we will ensure that you will grow stress and competition free. So in order to hold my end of the bargain I sighed and thinned.

I’ve already endorsed my main gardening resource by my man Ed Smith, and it’s a wonderful beginner’s book. However, just yesterday I received, opened and fell in love with another wee gem unusually titled Gardening When it Counts – growing food in hard times by Steve Solomon. I’ve heard lots of great things about this book from many a reputable source, but since it wasn’t available on Amazon (whom I single handedly keep in business some months, I swear), I’ve never tracked it down to check it out.  But the curiosity persisted, and one day some weeks ago I found another site that carries it, and ordered a copy.

I started reading right away since I have a garden to plant and all, and was immediately smitten. Written in a conversationally informative tone, the author promises to be the ‘gardening grandfather you never had.’ Once upon a time Steve Solomon ran a seed supply company and learned a great deal about growing vegetables. To run a good, meaning honest and ethical, seed supply company one needed to learn a great deal about seeds, where they come from, what their quality is, and plant many trials to see how the plants actually perform. Will they germinate at an acceptable or excellent rate? Will the vegetables grown be useful, properly formed and productive? Do they resist insects or diseases if grown organically? Are they well suited for the local climate? All these things can only be determined by growing many plants from seed and trying many different techniques while doing so.

The book teems with useful and informative bits – the stores of how your local garden centre may NOT be the best place to buy either plants OR seeds, was enthralling.  The expose of the seed business and why the pretty packets may be full of crap seeds entertained me thoroughly. How few tools you really need and how to select them eased my worries that I don’t know what a hoe is or how to use one. How vegetables use the nutrients in the soil and their root systems would typically be a boring subject, but this book makes it interesting, applicable and useful.  The gold mines for me were two: The complete organic fertilizer (COF) – a mix of soil amendments that work on any soil at all and will provide a complete nutritional supplement to veggies, all mixed by you from common sources and guaranteed to make your garden the best ever. And a complete (pretty current) list of reputable seed companies that actually do their own trials, set high standards, and stand behind the quality of their product. These he recommends as the companies to serve the bulk of your garden needs and they are split by geographic region, including many Canadian companies.  Many surprises in that section alone.

Other great things (that this book is chock-full of) include great techniques for starting seeds (which the author actually doesn’t recommend for most veggies), building beds and hills, techniques for using tools, making compost and irrigating intelligently. Every page of this unassuming book was an unexpected gold mine of information and I learned a phenomenal amount of actually useful, tried and tested information. He encourages his readers to grow the bulk of their vegetables, shows how easily this can be done on a 3,500 sq foot plot with minimal irrigation, and provides a ton of useful advice. Like the tile promises, if I only had one book and had to feed a family, I would feel safe and secure that this is it.