Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Aliens Invented This

 I'm not joking, aliens invented this. Someone probably from Mars where there is no green life. Certainly not a gardener because they wouldn't be this stupid. And what was I thinking buying such a thing? Obviously I wasn't. I mindlessly grabbed the thing thinking it was like those nice trays I'd bought a cuzillion years ago. The ones that finally bit the dust last year.  Now I know I'd have been better off buying aluminum  baking trays at the dollar store to water from the bottom.

So I'm warning you. If you see something like this, run, don't walk in the other direction and definitely don't buy it.  
 Or you'll find out these aren't seed pots at all but actually industrial strength hockey pucks. You can add water until your well runs dry before they finally suck up enough moisture to because saturated. I'm assuming some office Joe thought in theory that the mesh casing would make a handy pot. The problem is that the water runs off the packed peat moss and I couldn't get enough in the tray to get a nice soaked soil.
 So out came my old small pots and I crumpled the peat soil inside that had begun to to soften. This time when I added water the plastic pots retained the moisture and it was ready for me to tuck in my tomato, pepper, and cabbage seeds. Then I used the bottom of the tray to catch the water and set the whole thing on the refrigerator. I read that the heat from the motor will help the seeds sprout faster.  
I then used the lid as a tray also and put in another batch of small pots. This tray I put in the living room on top of a heating pad covered with plastic. I have a seed starting mat but have never had much luck with it. The heating pad on low does ten times better a job though I'm sure it requires more energy. That's why I just use it for heat loving plants to get them started. So the race has started. Which tray will sprout first, the refrigerator ones or the heating pad one? Care to wager a guess?

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