Just in . . . our new herb seedlings died! We were disappointed, but it was okay because we are seeing this experience as an experiment that we can learn from. We conducted additional research about planting indoors and found some ideas about how to keep our seedlings watered over a long weekend and adjusting our grow light height. Our grow light is a full spectrum light that produces a lot of heat so we cannot keep it at the same height as suggested for less powerful grow light options.
We are testing out two new watering methods using marigold, calendula, and petunia seeds Ms. Watsabaugh dried out herself this past fall. The petunia seeds are from a plant a student gave her last spring. Our new watering methods include soaking from below in trays and a capillary mat.
Capillary mats are something that allows a plant to be watered from the underside. We are using a tray with water in it, placing another tray with holes in it, and hanging newspaper over the side so the water is pulled up the newspaper through the process of capillary action. We are using newspapers for our mat, but there are many other ways to do it.
For fun, we are also using a heat pad under our petunias to see how this affects their germination rate.
Request: If you have any newspapers lying around that you are not using, we will take them.
