Blog
Soil blocking
My first venture into seed starting of sunflowers was a learning experience. My research led me to Lisa Mason Ziegler, the Queen of all things soil blocking.
Being an urban gardener I do not have a building dedicated to the farm with a grow room or a cooler. What I do have is a mostly unused basement and lots of shelving. A few $13 dollar grow lights and I was on my way. Soil blocking is the space saving technique I needed so I ordered Lisa’s soil block kit and started my first seeds. Her book Cool Flowers was my guide and I started some cool hardy annuals: Sweet William, Feverfew and Yarrow.
I watered and watched and waited (there is a lot of watching and waiting growing flowers). Then finally – germination! Teeny tiny leaves. Oh, it was exciting.
But why was the Feverfew not germinating as well? Two soil blocks and only about a third were growing.
The great thing about Lisa Mason Ziegler is she is so knowledgeable and shares that knowledge and experience with the rest of the world. I was watching facebook video of hers and she pointed to some soil blocks she had brought outside to harden off before transplanting. An area was struggling but was now putting on new growth. Virgo Feverfew, she said, must have been too warm in the grow room. It was like she was speaking directly to me! I ran to my basement and took the Feverfew off the seedling heat pad. A few days later I turned off the pad altogether and everything started growing faster. I learn something new every day in this new venture.
First seed starting.
SUNFLOWERS
When I first decided to start from seed I had no idea what I was doing. I started with sunflowsers. How hard could it be? School children start sunflowers seeds in styrofoam cups all the time.
Procut sunflowers have a quick maturity at around 60 days so I started a 50 cell tray with humidity lid outside on my patio table. Twelve seeds germinated. A few weeks later another 50 cell tray was started but this time 30 plus germinated. Things were looking up!
But then I left the top off and a critter of some sort nibbled the tops off of ten seedlings.
The survivors looked good and after a few weeks were ready to be transplanted. Twelve baby sunflowers made it into the ground and I watered and watched. My neighbor watched too and we decided they were growing well.
I came home on a Friday evening and transplanted the next batch. Rain was in the forecast and I thought that would work out well. Turned out it did not rain, so off I went to water my little patch. The taller sunflowers were decapitated! I was heart broken. They were doing so well! Well enough that they became a tasty snack for the neighborhood deer.
Needless to say, a fence went up the next day. The second batch continued to grow but I was already pushing the end of the season as it was into October and the cooler temperatures stunted the growth. Out of 100 seeds, three actually bloomed into full sunflowers. A few partially opened perhaps due to premature cutting.
This summer the fence will be up at transplant time and of course the seed starting will start in May so they get all the warm summer sun they need. Stay tuned for more sunflowers in 2021!
And so it begins.
Welcome to our flower journey. The journey of taking our small city lot and transforming it into an urban flower farm.
The lot, including house and garage, is just under a quarter acre with most of the land in the front, which leaves a small backyard bisected with a garage for flower beds.
How do I get the most production out of my little plot of land? We are going to find out.
