Why Haven't you Sprouted?
By the end of week 1, about half of my yCubes had sprouted. But come day 8, 9, 10 almost all of them had finally shown signs of life. On day 10, Kelby prompted me to add the plant food. I also decided to try sprouting a few of my own seeds at the same time. I love raw peas so I made 3 pods with different varieties of peas and I also did 3 pods with a flowering plant that I hope to transfer to my front yard called Penstemon parri. It’s a pretty pink to red flowering plant that the hummingbirds love.
So, did all my yCubes sprout? The answer is unfortunately “no”. But it was only 2 of the yCubes that failed to sprout by week 2. I decided to pull them out of the Gardyn since I had added the plant food and placed them in a shallow to-go container filled with plain water. I also poked around to ensure there were seeds present. The ones that didn’t sprout were the Arugula and the Cilantro. I had some arugula seeds handy so I decided to throw a few of my seeds into the yCube. That worked wonderful and they were actually sprouting after 2 days. So I went ahead and placed the Arugula back onto the Gardyn system. I didn’t have any cilantro seeds so I just pushed them a little closer to the surface of the yCube just to ensure they weren’t being suffocated. They are still in the shallow water along with 1 pea and 2 Penstemon parri pods that haven’t sprouted yet. I’ll give them a little more time before I give up on them.
My Home Experiment
The 2 inch starter basket’s that I purchased from Amazon fit perfectly in the Gardyn system. The growth medium used is called rockwool so I purchased 1.5 inch rockwool squares to fit in the 2 inch baskets. In order to “plant” your own seeds, you just pull back a little of the rockwool, place the seeds under the surface then cover them back up. Be careful not to bury them too far down or the seed might get suffocated. If you have already put plant food in your Gardyn system, you’ll need to sprout them in your sprouting dish first.
Let’s talk about rockwool. It’s made from balsaltic rock that is heated to a very high temperature and spun into rockwool. It’s a medium that has been used for hydroponic growing for a long time and is also known to be used as insulation. There is some controversy over whether it’s biodegradable and/or safe to use. I suggest you do your own research in order to make your own decision about rockwool. There are other mediums out there such as Peat Moss, Coco Coir, Rapid Rooter, etc. I bought the rockwool to try first since I’m new to hydroponics. I plan to do more research and will experiment with some of the other mediums a bit later.
What Did I Learn From Kelby?
Kelby started to give me some instructions on Day 10. She let me know it was time to feed my plants and gave me instruction on how much plant food to add. The next day she instructed me to start thinning my plants. She said to snip off some of the extra seedlings and just leave 1 -2 of the healthier sprouts. Instead of snipping them, I gently pull them out trying to keep the root intact as someone had suggesting putting these seedlings into an outside garden. I know a lot of people, including myself, have a hard time pulling out seedlings. So we’ll see if putting them out in the garden will work. Why not? Kelby also let me know that I could manually change the light schedule if needed. Some customers like to modify it to meet their personal needs. Kelby just emphasized that the plants would do their best if they get 16 hrs of “boost” light. I did change my schedule and it was fairly easy to do.
I do want to emphasize that it’s really important to thin your seedlings. I learned this from outdoor gardening. The seedlings will compete with each other for nutrients and won’t allow each other to flourish. What I discovered is if you don’t thin them, the plants won’t be as healthy and an unhealthy garden usually gets attacked by insects. So thin those plants (whether indoor or outdoors) so you have happy, healthy growth.
See You Next Week...
I’m eager to learn more in the coming week. I’ve already noticed from the posts on the Facebook group that my plants seem to be growing a bit slower than others so I want to figure out why. I know that the temperature and humidity might be different throughout the country. The humidity in the southwest is much lower than other areas. There might also be differences in how much plant food people may have added. I got a spray bottle and plan to start misting my plants and see if that helps. More to come…
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