A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned my tentative plans for the fall garden. Since then, I decided to move forward with the idea of starting our carrots indoors in toilet paper rolls with the intention of transplanting them (roll and all) into one of the beds in the front yard to overwinter as soon as I clear one of the beds out.
To get started, I simply grabbed my bag of saved toilet paper rolls and two of my old seed starting trays and filled them each with 66 rolls…
Then, I took them both outside and slowly filled them all with a mixture of seed starting soil and a bit of our own compost. Before sowing the seeds, I watered both flats nice and deep to avoid dislodging my seeds immediately after planting. I then placed a single seed in each roll (though an extra couple may have fallen into a couple of the rolls…those seeds are tiny!), sprinkled a tiny bit of soil on top of each seed, gently watered again, and brought them inside to get settled under our grow lights.
My hope is that the toilet paper roll will provide a safe space in which the seed can germinate before being transplanted as well as provide a bit of insulation for the taproot through the coldest nights of winter. We’ll see if it works! But now, now we simply wait. Wait for germination, wait to clear out the beds, wait to put up our hoop houses, wait for the season to officially shift.
xoxo,
M
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did it work?
Oh man…unfortunately, I did not actually get them planted out, so no. Our daughter was born at the beginning of October and I underestimated the amount of time I’d need ahead of time and directly after to get things done around the property. I will try this again, though, because I do think it will work 🙂
Sounds like a good idea. Do keep us posted on how it works out. Thanks for sharing!
Please join us again Thursday at:
http://summersacres.blogspot.com/2013/09/the-homeacre-hop-autumn-giveaway.html
~Ann
Oooooh, I’m interested to see how this turns out! Thanks for sharing.
Wishing you a lovely weekend.
xoxo
This is such a great idea…will be watching to see how it works out.
Thanks Nora! My fingers are crossed!
I look forward to see how that goes! I’ve never tried it before.
PS–You were right about kale–everyone loves it!
Oohh…I am so hopeful it will work!
And kale…best thing ever, right?! It’s amazing how good it is!