Click the thumb nail picture for a larger image.
This is a view of my seedling beds. Each one can hold about 450 - 500 seedlings. This photo was taken on August 3, 2003 and shows the middle bed full of first year bloom seedlings. The nearest bed holds the ones planted out in the spring of this year while the third bed, barely visible beyond the blooming bed will house next spring's seedlings. My plan is to have a 3 year rotation and will then clear out a bed for the forth year.
Another picture of the seedling beds, looking west taken in late July 2004.
This is a shot of the two seedling beds in the front yard where a wildflower meadow used to exist. It had gotten overgrown with 6' tall goldenrod so it was getting unmanageable. Half of the meadow still exists but may need to make way for more seedling beds in the future. These beds hold selected seedlings, some extra seedlings that could not fit into my regular seedling beds and a few named cultivars as well.
I start my seedlings indoors usually by about mid December which gives me time over the holidays to pot them up. I will keep up this process until I have run out of room usually by mid January. This picture was taken in mid March and my mid April I put them outside to start to harden off. There is one plant per pot and the pots are 3 1/2" square by 5" deep. I do not prune the leaves and let them curl around the lights. Occasionally some leaves will burn but only if I have let the pots get too dry. The plants will be root-bound by the time they get planted out around the beginning of June. I drape some tin foil down the sides and on the ends to reflect light back inwards (it has been pulled up on the side for the picture). The table is a 4' x 8' sheet of plywood and will hold 22 flats of 18 pots each on the lower level. I water by filling each flat with a half to full inch of water and letting the pots soak up from the bottom.
This page was last updated on 2006/08/07.