The Growing Challenge: Bean Siting!

Is this the cutest thing you've ever seen? I'm in love!

I decided on Bush Beans and Yellow Zucchini for the Growing Challenge and yesterday I spotted this under the grow lights. I nearly screamed! It's the bush bean seed I stuck in the coconut fiber pellet. No sign of the Zucchini yet but I'll keep you posted.

In other seed starting news, the coconut fiber pellets are doing great. I see growth in several of them after 6 days. Unfortunately there is not a damn thing growing in the peat containers.
Stuff growing in coconut fiber pellets above.

Nothing in the peat trays below.

I'm pretty much freaking out about this because all of my tomato seeds are planted in the peat trays. Every single one of them! I'm so shocked by this. For some reason I thought the trays would be so much better. I already hate them on so many levels. I hated filling them with dirt - what a mess! Every time I water them I think there is no way they'll hold up until planting time. They are so flimsy I feel like they are falling apart already.

I have more seeds to plant today and I'll tell you right now, I'm going coconut fiber all the way baby! I remember that MBT told me I could go buy this stuff from a pet store but what I noticed is that the coconut fiber is only staying together because of the little sock thingy holding it in place. If I try to make these myself, how do I make the sock part?

99 Coconut Fiber Pellets On The Wall

My Coconut Fiber Pellets arrived this week! Let me just go ahead and tell you that I totally messed up the reference to these things in previous posts. I think I called them "Cocoa Cocoa Hull Pellets" What the hell is that? I think I was thinking of cocoa cocoa mulch? Maybe? Hell I don't know. Anyway, I'll be using these to start my seeds indoors in a little while if I can figure out how to use them. I think I need to do something with them and water but I don't exactly know what, yet. I believe only one seed goes in each one and I'm hoping that I'll be able to start one seed in these, then transfer them to a larger container without having to re-pot the seedlings. This appeals to my inner lazy gardener ;)


These came from a great company in California called Peaceful Valley. They have all sorts of great things for the organic gardener. According to Peaceful Valley, and the blogger who first turned me on to these, they are sustainable and environmentally friendly (though having these shipped all the way from California to Illinois is not environmentally friendly.) Apparently using Peat is bad news. I can't remember exactly why and I also can't find the blog of said person who turned me on to these. It's something about creating an edible landscape and its about a couple who moved from the big city in California to a farm where they are trying to grow their own food. Anybody???

So that's that!