Soil Blocking, pt 2
I am shocked. Truly. This has been the easiest, most rewarding gardening things I’ve done in a while. Ok, so in the last post, I walked through how and why I was getting started with this process and the materials needed. I’m now 1 month post seed starting and the results have been so exciting.
After gathering all of my materials, I dumped a bag of germination mix into a large plastic bin and mixed with multiple jugs of water. Then, I let the mixture sit for a little while to allow the water to absorb. I had never done this before so I had no idea how much of anything to use. Turns out, it was way too much soil and a little too much water but everything still worked fine.
Then I played with the blocker thingy. It was really simple – using a scraping motion into the dirt, I packed the blocker then released the blocks into my seed starting tray.
The blocker I have leaves a little indention in the middle of each block for a seed. However … couldn’t I put multiple seeds in one block?? My thought was, these blocks are really large and I bet if I put 3-4 seeds in each block, I could gently divide the block once the roots were established. And that way I could produce 4 times as many seedlings with the same amount of dirt and space. So, that’s what I did. Like I said, this was all trial and error.
After getting all of my blocks done, with the help of my mama, we set up the trays on the warming mats in a super fancy set up … ha! Squeezed on top of a filing cabinet next to the water heaters in the basement. Then we hung a plain old shop light from the ceiling beam and put it as close to the tray top as possible. (The light really should be much closer but that was all the chain we had). We covered each tray lightly with plastic wrap. Then each day, I would take a mason jar of water and pour it into the bottom of the tray so that the blocks could pull the water up. Do not pour water on top of the blocks.
*So two points of importance here. Apparently, seeds primarily need a certain soil temp to germinate (thus the heating mat) and don’t need the overhead light until you see green. Once they have germinated, you can turn off the heat mat. However, we mistakenly kept ours on for about a week and it didn’t seem to do any harm. Also the beautiful thing about the plastic wrap: each day, flip the plastic wrap over so the wet side is pointing toward the ceiling. Otherwise, things will stay too wet in there.
As soon as the sprouts are tall enough to touch the plastic wrap, it can be removed completely. Then you just wait! It takes about a month for the seedling to be large and strong enough to transplant. Continue to water regularly – do not let the blocks dry out.
Stay tuned for part 3!
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