The seedlings that I’ve sown in July were growing really well. Most of them already had big leaves, and some were even ready for transplanting. I was just waiting for the rain to soften the soil, and then this happened.
Yesterday my hubby was starting to build the new seedling heated closet, and while he was making drywall sides, he went outside to cut the excess drywall, squatted, and when he got up he knocked down my whole seedling shelf. The shelf is removable and hangs on 3 girders so that I could easily remove it when it’s not needed. Well, as it turns out my hubby’s head is strong enough to knock it down from the girders. All of my seedlings ended up on the floor. Most of them got seriously banged up, unlike the hubbies head which is intact.
Even worse is that 2 days ago I’ve thinned out the extra plants in most of the trays. There could have been some surviving plants if I haven’t removed the extras. Now that the small containers had only one or two seedlings, most of them got completely destroyed.
I’ve managed to salvage a part of the seedlings. A few trays, like lettuce ones, landed face up so the seedlings weren’t as badly damaged. All of the labels fell out, so now I have no idea which lettuce survived and which were lost. All I know is that, out of 4 lettuce trays, I have two almost intact and two almost completely empty.
One kale tray is gone and in the other two trays, I have some seedlings left, so I’ll have to use what’s left. There’s no more time to sow new before the autumn, so I guess I’ll have to sow spring kale for next year.
Onions were also badly banged. 50% of one container ended on the floor and broke. I’ve salvaged the rest, hopefully, they’ll survive. Leeks are a bit rolled over, but pretty much intact. They landed on top of other seedlings, so the tray didn’t break.
The only thing completely intact is the sedum cuttings that I took to propagate for the garage roof garden. The sedums weren’t bothered with the fall. I have a feeling they wouldn’t be bothered even if a bulldozer rolled over them. All of the plants are intact, and all of them grew roots, so I don’t have to take new cuttings.
Luckily my flower seedlings were not on the shelf when the disaster happened. A few days back, I’ve moved them to the small table under the shelf, as the sun was too strong for them and it dried out the trays too quickly. I’ve moved them so that I could bottom water my seedlings. This saved their heads. They didn’t fall down and that’s excellent because I don’t have any perennial seeds left to repeat the sowing. I’ve used all the seeds.
As the cherry on the top, this morning I came to the garden to check on the chard and lettuces that I’ve transplanted yesterday morning. I was happy that at least some of my seedlings were safe, and boy I was wrong.
As it turns out chard is gone, the snails gobbled it down. I can’t believe that out of all the vegetables in the garden, the one snail that came to the garden ate only the chard. I caught him in the act, and at least he won’t eat any more of my veggies anymore.
I guess I should do another sowing attempt to compensate for the lost seedlings, but somehow I don’t think that’s a good idea. We’re close to the middle of August. Soon morning fogs will start, and temperatures will drop enough for the autumn lettuces to be sown. I guess it’s better to wait a couple of weeks and then start the autumn varieties. At least they’ll be sown directly to the garden, so there won’t be any knocked trays.
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