Growing them early.......???

Hi all !

Has any of you ever tried to germinate your seeds

VERY early ? Like end of february, or half march ??

I once did that with some other kind of plants like

what we call the "wondertree", and also with cucumbers....

I already told on this list that I worked with an aquarium tank

from about 400 litres. On the bottom, I put some stones or

plastic ice cream boxes put upside down. I fill the tank with

4-6 inches of water wich will be heated up to about 27°C.

This by using the normal heating set of a tropical fishtank.

Now, the top of the stones stays just above the waterline.

That's were I put the little pots with germinating seedlings. On top of the aquarium,

I placed some glass plates which can be altered(open or close) to control humidity.

On top of the glass plates, I put the normal aquarium lights. That means one

UV-plantlamp and two "normal" lights wich gave more red of the spectrum than blue or white.

Lights were on 18hrs a day.

This setup was made end of february 1996 and I remember 2 things very well :

1/ The plants grow like a jungle !! With firm leaves and they even gave flowers half march!!

2/ I didnt work with sterile soil, so I had to fight some fungi.

Now, when I wanted to put them outside, I started to lower temp. in the aquarium,

and taking off the glass plates for longer and longer periods of time.

Now I am talking about half of april approx.(it was easter)

They all survived ! ! And they had a headstart from about 2 months. I remember some

cucumbers were bigger, some stopped growing earlier in the season.

Thanks in advance for all comments.

Greetings from........BELGIUM ! !

Wim Van Loock

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