Hot House Seedlings

With the new little plastic Hot House finished (see here) (Thanks Doc!!) I can get on with potting on all the little seedlings that are screaming out for room to move!

This morning I made up a batch of potting-on mix using:
1 Bucket of Super Coir mix:

• 1 coir brick soaked in a bucket of:
• 1/2 bucket of rainwater mixed with
• 1/3 cup seaweed concentrate,
• 1/3 cup Charlie Carp (fish emulsion),
• 1/4 cup potash powder,
• 2 Tablespoons of Epsom salts (magnesium)

1 Bucket of sandy loam
1 Bag of Elcheapo potting mix
2-3 handfuls of Blood and Bone
Added to this mix, 1 handful of worm castings per plant

I chose cut down 2 litre milk containers that I rescue from work. These will fit 12 to a polystyrene fruit box that the local grocer store throws away every so often. The base is lined with off-cuts of shadecloth to keep the soil mix in.

With the mix and worm castings in place I very carefully teased the roots of the Black Zucchini seedlings apart, made a hole and placed each one of the 10 seedlings into it's new home.

I did the same with 4 Mini Lebanese Cucumbers, 5 Jap Pumpkins (Just Another Pumpkin) and a few red and yellow Alaska Nasturtiums to fill in the gaps. The Nasturtiums are Companion Plants for the cucurbit family so when I go to plants these out their companion plants will be ready in the same box.

I have a spare box of mix made up waiting and I'll choose the 12 best Black Russian Tomato seedlings to go in there tomorrow.
Currently it is Fruit planting time on the Moon Planting Guides (from here), next weekend will be time to pot on the Sunflowers, Cosmos and Marigolds and the Basils will wait until the moon is right for Greens next week (21st Aug).

The rest of the potting mixture was used to pot on a Yellow Pear Tomato cutting and some Lipstick Pimento cuttings taken from last year's best plants and have over-wintered in the old hot house.
I also topped up the pots of an over-wintered Eggplant and some Yellow Egg Tomatoes that have been growing all winter in the hot house and have been part of an experiment on pruning Tomato plants.

I have placed a spare max-min thermometer in the new hot house to keep an eye on the temps in there as we still have plenty of frosty nights to come. Sunny days will mean rising temps during the day too. That's why we have shadecloth on the door and in the upper arch at the rear of the hot house for ventilation.