Hands in the (Sorta) Earth to Stay Sane

We keep hearing and reading that "playing in the dirt/mud" is good for the soul and the psyche, but with little mud here yet and most of the garden still under a good layer of snow turned to almost ice, the only way it is going to happen is with

pseudo-earth. In this case, a soggy wet tub of ProMix and a soil blocker, which I used the otherday to seed my tomatoes for the year. 

It may look like a heck of a lot of seeds but with saved packets from years past, I only ended up with 84 or so seeded blocks. My recycled shortening containers comfortably hold two rows of 7 tiny soil blocks each. That works out well for the many varieties. I can write the variety names on each side of the container on duct tape and hopefully keep them sorted out. Some of the rows of 7 contained the last few seeds of two different varieties. 

Separating the little blocks from the array of 20 that the blockmaking tool generates requires a bit of finesse. With a gentle touch, on can pick up one block at a time, but I found that sliding a row of them into place, and then only putting two, at most, in by hand had the best results.

Long ago in my struggle to successfully grow my own starts, damping off fungus was my main adversary. But then I discovered the trick of covering the seeds with playground sand instead of potting mix and have not had a single issue since. I guess the sand will not support the fungus, which is fine with me!

Tomatoes should be up next week, but the next day or so will be devoted to making the larger 2" blocks to pot up the jungle of broccoli and cauliflower that are growing like crazy on the grow rack.

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