Summer Cutting Garden -- Phase 1

Germination Soil Mix

Forming Soil into Block Form

Soil Blocks

Dad Pressing Soil Blocks onto Tray

Me Making Soil Blocks

Germination Seed Layout by Tray

Pete Seeding our Zinnia Tray

Pete and I are pursuing a somewhat ambitious project of starting a cutting garden in two parts of MA (one right outside Boston and the other in Western MA).  Ambitious because we live in NYC and will be spending many weekends commuting to and fro to care for our garden.

Phase I of the project involves seed germination in my parents' basement.  We made soil blocks -- never done so before but read somewhere that blocks were a better way to germinate and transplant.  I'm hoping to include some of these blossoms in this summer's arrangements.

We made some messy blocks at first (soil was too wet) and despite my father's moaning, we endured and made, in my opinion, some pretty fine blocks.  Now come the seeds:  zinnias, sweetpeas, scabiosas, verbena...1,200 blocks filled with seeds.  Not sure how the sweetpeas will tolerate a New England spring, but I'm hopeful (I'm a shameless optimist).  With persistent watering and a heated germination mat (I'm reluctantly leaving this to my father's care), these babies will sprout and Pete and I will have some mega planting to do in April!