Stories from someone who is learning to grow
Still not much actual gardening is happening this early in January. I’m planning to start some more seeds this weekend, and it is supposed to be sunny (or at least not raining) both Saturday and Sunday, so we’ll see what other jobs in the garden I can find to do this weekend.
But in the meantime….I have nothing more to talk about than chervil. Are you tired of hearing about chervil yet? I harvested a bit of chervil to cook with! It’s looking really good on the porch.
The chervil seedlings that I started from seed in November are finally big enough (I hope) to be put outside.
After several days (weeks really!) of very nasty weather – very cold and very wet, snow and ice then buckets of rain – it was finally sunny today. It went outside and it felt like spring was coming!
Continue reading “The Chervil Is Growing Up”Remember the chervil I planted a week or so ago (10 days ago to be exact) to use in a soup recipe?
Hmmm….not looking good. But upon closer inspection……
Continue reading “Update on the Chervil”I have one more recipe left in my Veganomicon cookbook – I’ve made every other recipe (that’s over 250 recipes). The last recipe is a Porcini Wild Rice Soup, and it calls for chervil. I grew chervil this summer, but it’s a cool weather crop and it bolted pretty quickly, so I didn’t even get to try any. (I did save its seeds, though, so it wasn’t a total loss).
I restarted the chervil.
I lifted the pots out of the tray to inspect them a little closer and noticed that both the chervil and parsley and long, wispy roots trailing out the bottom of the pots. Can you see them in this photo?
The wispy roots are the reason these plants aren’t growing, but what caused the wispy roots? Did I let them dry out and the roots had to stretch to find water? Or food? Is this a problem having to do with the nature of the newspaper pots?
I don’t know, but I’m going to try again. Im potting the chervil up again, and this time, I will be very conscientious about watering and I’ll keep the window nearly closed to minimize cold drafts.
Second time’s the charm?
Here are my seedlings yesterday:
And here they are three weeks ago:
Notice much of a difference? Neither do I.
Continue reading “My Pitiful Seedlings :(“I saw my first onion sprout! One of the six Evergreen White Bunching Onions came up last Sunday…day 11 since planting.
Still no sight of the Walla Wallas. I think I’ll wait until this weekend and then re-plant more seeds. These are older seeds, so I was expecting a lower germination rate, and I only put 4 seeds in that pot.
The chervil seeds are still growing (slowly), but the stem and cotyledons are turning brown. Is this normal?
Today (Thursday, Dec 17) will be 12 days since I planted these seeds. The seed packets say it can take 10-28 days for the parsley and 10-14 days for the chervil to germinate.
On Tuesday morning (day 10), I woke up to this in the chervil pot:
Do you see that little sprout?! I’m so excited!
I was worried about my new makeshift seed starting set up. I worried the light might not be strong enough or close enough to the soil or that I was over- or underwatering the seeds. I need not have worried.
Last night, the chervil seedling looked like this:
Growing strong!
Also, I checked the parsley pot last night, and there were not one but two sprouts poking their heads up. Here’s a photo of one. Can you see it?
I put two chervil seeds in the chervil pot and three parsley seeds in the parsley pot. They’re germinating right on schedule. I’m very happy with how this is going!
On Sunday (Dec 6th), I planted my first seeds for the 2021 garden.
I decided to start with chervil and parsley to test out my seed starting set up. These are both cold hardy herbs, so if they outgrow the starter pots, they will hopefully be fine if I need to transplant them into the garden in January or February. Alternatively, I could put them in pots that I can bring indoors if the weather turns.
Also, I bought these seeds just a couple of weeks ago, and couldn’t wait to open the packages!
The chervil packet says it needs light to germinate, so you are supposed to press the seed into the soil surface. The parsley says it should be planted 1/4″ deep.
Here are my pots prepared with seed starting mix:
I used the smaller of the two sizes of newspaper pots that I made and cut the top off, so the pots are a bit shorter, to test out different heights.
Here’s the finished potted and labeled pots:
I watered them in and now…. I wait!