Microgreens sucess!

After almost a year of trying to grow microgreens for market and failing with each batch, I've finally had success.

By using a mixture of coconut coir and perlite, and by placing my 10x20 trays in the natural sunlight of a temperature controlled greenhouse, my test trays of spicy radish microgreens and mild kale microgeens flourished into a healthy crop in 10 days.

A test tray of sunflower microgreens is showing much better progress, but has not yet produced the results I'm looking for. I think that I have kept the growing medium too moist and a little bit of damping-off has occurred.

I don't know if it is the sunlight that has brought about the desired results as compared to the artificial compact fluorescent lighting that I had been using before, or if its the fact that I have abandoned Sure-to-Grow brand growing pads in favor of a more traditional growing medium.

It could be also a combination of these two which have produced a wholly improved growing environment for the microgreens.

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Temps plunge

Colder winter weather has moved in after a weekend in the 60s and 70s. The high today was 28 degrees, and the lows are in the mid 20s. The greenhouse ran out of propane last night, and the temperature inside was about 54 when I discovered the heater was out at 3:34 A.M. Even with the Mr. Heater Big Buddy propane heater on its high setting, the temperature inside only reaches 60 when it's 28 outside. At night, the heater keeps the greenhouse in the 50s. A tray for sprouting peppers is near the heater so that it can stay in the 70s to aid germination. The rest of the plants and germinated seed should fare well in the 50s. Elsewhere, rain barrels have frozen over, and icey precipitation has accumulated on the ground.

Oasis Cubes better than seed starting mix

In my comparison of using a seed starting mix and Oasis cubes for germinating seeds, I have found that the Oasis cubes far outperform the seed starting mix. Not only is damping off not an issue with the cubes, but there has been a greater success of germinating pepper and tomato seeds with the cubes. It remains to be seen if the advantage of the cubes continues on to transplantation. It may turn out that the cubes simply do not measure up to a root ball of seed starting mix when it comes to putting them out either in the garden or into hydroponic media.

Effective control of crickets

After losing successful starter seedlings to crickets, I have had to undertake a total cricket eradication program in the greenhouse. This included removing all dead leaves and debris from the floor, getting rid of clutter an extra buckets and other items that were not in use, and spraying the greenhouse floor, wall and doorway with an organic pesticide. Essentria IC3 is an organic pesticide with plant oils as its active ingredients. Although I was skeptical that the product would work as I needed it to, it turns out that after two applications I have almost totally eliminated all crickets that were already in the greenhouse and ones that migrated into it after application. I still must follow up with a light spraying daily in order to control the crickets that have entered each night through crevices and cracks between bricks in the floor of the greenhouse. But I have lost no more seedlings since I have using the product..

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