Outdoor Planting: Round 1

This weekend, we spent a few hours setting up the balcony for the first set of seeds to be planted outdoors this year. We:

• Soaked the tougher seeds overnight to help them germinate
  
• Cleaned the used containers with a diluted bleach solution
  
• Lined some containers (knaf liners for the milk crates, clear plastic garbage bags for the cedar planters)
• Hydrated the coir bricks
• Mixed the coir with potting mix, and added fish emulsion fertilizer where needed
• Created a plan of where to set-up the containers and which plants would go where, based on the plant's sun needs
  
• Filled the containers with the new potting mix
  
• Planted seeds: arugula, swiss chard, beets (2 kinds) and mustard greens (2 kinds)
  
• Drank beer

We ended up being 2 bags short of potting mix; very annoying since I took 2 separate trips to buy the potting mix and had to take a taxi home since the load would have been way too heavy to bring on the streetcar.

The indoor seeds are doing quite well, except for mint (which still continues to be M.I.A.). Kale is the newest addition to the indoor team, and are sprouting up nicely.