2001 Growers Log - April
April 2nd is not the "usual" starting date for many growers, but due to the short growing season here in Medicine Hat I like to start early and protect my plants as best as possible until all danger of frost is past (around June 1st). This year I will only have one plant. I tried growing 4 plants in 1999 but I was only really able to focus on two. I grew two in 2000 (Still too much work). This year I am just doing one. The lucky seed is the Cramer 824. I soaked it overnight (April 2nd) in water then placed it in a petri dish with some damp paper. I germinated the seed at 85 degrees F using an incubator I made from a small fan heater and a thermostat in one of my workshop cabinets. The seedling (pictured above) went into the coldframe outside on April 17th. Other items of note for this season. I now have a nice digital camera (Fuji Finepix 1400) for better quality photos on the web page and a web cam (3Com Home Connect) that allows me to do some time lapse photography of seeds and seedlings.
As you can see from the photo above (taken this morning) the seedling planted on the 17th is doing very well. I took the cold frame off to take this photo. Our temperature was up to 29 degrees C yesterday (close to 85 degrees F) which is pretty warm for this time of year up here.