As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.......
Being a scavenger, I always am on the Inspiration look out for something to make the world an easier place. I have always believed in conserving things out of necessity and have always protected the environment, because it was the right thing to do. I am though not green in the least or an environmentalist as I worship God and have no psychopathy where I have to cling to earth or cuddle animals, because people and this planet are a harsh place.
Life is life and it is hard, so you just deal with it in the Lord and things turn out.
Enough of the sermon from the raised bed.........
What this is about is sprouting vegetables. I came across some throw away containers from a Chinese take out place, which are about 6 by 8 inches and 2 inches deep with a nice plastic lid. The thing with sprouting seeds is they sometimes take longer than they should and the soil dries out due to uneven temperatures in my cold house.
I have tried various things from plastic wrap on top to finding in the good will some old plastic food containers which worked well, in I could put a plastic pot in them for sprouting and cover them all up. This worked wondefully, but on seeing these take out containers, I saw in them the perfect little seed flats.
All that is necessary is to poke a few holes in the bottom of the container for drainage, and then you can set them in a pan or place another container underneath them to keep muddy water from running out.
If you are astute in not burning yourself, I have an old spike I heat on a stove burner, being held by a vice grip, and then melt my way through several of them at a time.
These things are actually too big as one could sprout several hundred seeds, but you can always just divide them up for various other veggies too to save space. Gets a bit hard sprouting like tomatoes though, so the alternative is for cabbages, tomatoes etc....
They are built for small seeds, and what I do is when seeds sprout, before they get all bent over and diseased from growing onto the plastic is with a teaspoon take them out and transplant into plastic drinking cups with a hole melted in for drainage.
If you pay attention to such things, you should be able to evolve your seeds to sprouting better each year to your conditions. Meaning if you take the first sprouts and save the seeds from them, you should be able to get a plant in a few years which germinates under less favorable conditions.
It fascinates me in I have a red pear tomatoe which is just horrid for sprouting and a Big Boy which just blows through the soil. Some melons take forever like a Charentais while I have a Petit Gres Rennes which is up in a few days. Both French melons and yet such a difference in germination.
It is like the white flour corn I got out of North Dakota, which will sprout in cold weather in a week, while a Bantam sweet corn will take two weeks under the same conditions.
I hope this helps in the sprouting things. It never makes any sense to me most of the time, as there are times I have transplanted my few seedlings, only to find a month later a host of little tomatoes coming up in the tray too finally reaching the conditions which they will germinate in.
I try not to save seeds from them.
agtG
