Garden Report

I don't talk a lot about my gardening, though it is, more or less, my day job.   It provides more than half of my food and some supplemental income that music most conspicuously doesn't provide.   Especially since I've been out of circulation since my accident.

This is the second year that I've been using soil blocks  made with Ladbrooke soil blockers to start seedlings for transplanting and it has made an enormous difference in how I garden and how much work it is.

Starting with one micro soil blocker that produces twenty 3/4 inch blocks with a small indentation for starting small seeds, and a larger hand held blocker that makes four at a time, with block inserts (unfortunately, you've got to buy those separately) that allow the little blocks to be put in them.   This year I bought a larger, floor model blocker that makes 20 larger blocks, that some hard core blockers say can produce more than 2000 an hour.  I have made about five hundred in a session without breaking much of a sweat.  You have to directly plant seeds in those blocks, though there is a floor model that makes 12 at a time, which you can fit with the blocks for the micro-blocks, maybe some year I'll get that.  Despite what they say in the literature, I generally have found that most seeds will germinate faster if they are covered with a pinch of soil, any medium you use should either be soil-less or pasteurized.   I've also relied on natural fungus supressors, chamomile tea, cinnamon, clove, to suppress damping off of seedlings when it's not warm enough to expose them to the sun.

You can read all about them, a lot of seed companies sell them, or watch a lot of Youtubes about them.  The cost of buying the hand-held ones (currently 20-30 dollars) pays for itself in a short time, the floor models (about 200 dollars) take  longer to pay for themselves, but, considering the volume you can produce, not that long.   I've certainly paid more than that for those plastic six-packs and other disposable containers.  With the soil blockers, your biggest problem will be getting trays to put the blocks in and to keep them moist (the micro-blocks, especially, dry out, especially in warm, dry, and windy conditions.  I use a spray bottle for the small ones and a very gentle watering can for the others.  It's surprising how long you can hold plants in a small block and how much better it is to transplant them, the blocks help prevent transplant shock.   I started and transplanted several hundred sunflowers using blocks, several hundred sorghum plants and am experimenting with things I'd never try sowing directly like grain amaranth.   With how cold this spring has been, then dry, I wish I'd tried corn in them.  Perhaps next year I'll be better set up for that.

Anyway, that's the gardening corner, as close to cosy as I think I'm constitutionally able to get.

Oh, and one more thing,  I'd never even try gardening, now, without one of these Korean hand tools.   I use it for everything, including breaking new ground.  I lost mine for a few hours last year and got so panicked I ordered another one.