Why is it that when you buy 10 seedlings you get 10 seedlings, but when you buy hundreds you get dozens of seedlings extra? It is nice to get freebies, but why do people assume that if you buy 10 seedlings you only have space for 10 seedlings, and when you buy hundreds you have extra space for dozens of seedlings more. Buying hundreds of seedlings actually probably means that we already filled the whole garden and the extra ones will not have room on the beds.

Last week I bought seedlings from one of our local family farms. I decided to buy most of my seedlings because of the poor results in the past 2 years. The past two winters have just been too mild and warm for any serious seedling growing. I don’t have a greenhouse so I used to germinate seedlings in the house and used windows to grow them until April. Past 2 years our winters were so mild that we barely heat the house. It’s not really possible to grow healthy and strong seedlings when the house temperature is under 19°C. Before my seeds would germinate in just a couple of days, the fireplace kept them extra warm and they were growing great. Now it takes them ages to start growing, and when they start growing we get extra cold March and April which keeps us from growing the seedlings outside and sunbathing them. This is why I had almost no seedlings last year and this year I bought most of them.

I bought 100 tomatoes, 130 peppers, 60 brassicas, and dozens of other seedlings. I ordered over 350 seedlings and of course, I got lots of extra seedlings and ended up with over 400 seedlings.

This would not be such a problem if it weren’t for the crazy rainy weather we’ve been having. We had only 6 dry days this month and only 3 dry days in the last 10 days which means that I don’t have the time to plant everything as it should be planted. Also, it means that I didn’t have the time to prepare the beds. 

There was no time to think or plan anything, I had only a couple of days to prepare all the beds and plant all my seedlings. 

So on Thursday, I went to the garden in the evening because the garden was too wet in the morning and spent 3 hours planting. I had to free the tulip bed, dig and clean the two more beds to start planting. I managed to plant cucumbers and cherry tomatoes on an ex tulip bed and make two tomato/pepper beds next to the cucumber bed. I went against big beds of single vegetables and went for a mix of all vegetables. I decided to have all my vegetables all around the garden to be sure at least one place would be ok for my veggies. I managed to plant over half of the seedling in just one day.

I was planning on doing my planting for at least two more days, but the weather report said I had only one more dry day so the next day, on Friday I spent two hours preparing and planting 3 more beds with seedlings. I’d have no problems if I didn’t have lots of extra seedlings so instead of having my small veggie beds I ended up having a mess of everything everywhere, and I mean everywhere. I have now planted tomatoes between onion, cabbages on flower beds, tomatoes with no beds just planted in the grass, peppers growing on the shaded parts of the garden where I’ve never grown them before. The garden is completely packed. 

With all the rain we’ve been having lately I had no chance to clean the rest of the garden, but the miracle happened and the Saturday morning was also dry so I run to the garden before 6am to do the cleaning. I really had no time to do the thorough cleaning of the garden so I just did the quick clean-up removing all the weeds that I could and digging around the plants to give them air. In just 7 hours, over the weekend,  I did all the work that had to be done during the 20 days of May. I cleaned all the beds, cleaned the paths, planted all the seedlings, and managed to mow half of the garden paths. I did not manage to mow everything because the Saturday afternoon was rainy and it has been raining since. 

I still need to plant my cucumber seedling and some flowers which are still too small for planting. I left the trays in the garden for the rain to water them. It’s not like it’s too dry for them downstairs. 

Now I can only hope that the seedlings will not get sick with all the rain and low temperatures that we’ve been having.