‘Mascara’ Lettuce Seedling

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

I often allow some of my lettuce plants on the roof to bolt and go to seed in the late summer heat. They look beautiful and eventually produce seeds that can be collected for next year.

‘Mascara’ is a vivid, red oakleaf variety that comes back up on its own in the spring. I do collect the seeds, but since it sows itself I tend to just give them all away. I find the tiny seedlings popping up in pots scattered around the roof and carefully transplant each one where I want them. Free food! And all from one plant that I let go a few years back.

This is the first seedling that popped up this year. I thought the nasty snowstorm a while back would kill it, but its still kicking. Tough little thing.

More about ‘Mascara’ lettuce here

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Distinctly Canadian Seedlings

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

Nicole, one of the members of the You Grow Girl Seedling Growing Collective, brought some of her newly started seeds over to the greenhouse on Saturday where they will benefit from the warm and sunny growing conditions. When I saw the recycled cups she was using — the possible former home of a double-double — I couldn’t resist snapping a few shots.

I know Tim Hortons is available in the U.S. now-a-days, but we Canadians still consider it a distinctly Canadian institution. That’s our crappy coffee, damn it!

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Onion Seedlings

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

Don’t onion seedlings make you think of tiny little alien tentacles or periscopes rising up from the soil?

p.s. If you sow too much, the sprouts are edible, too.

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Basil Seedlings at the Greenhouse

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

We are experiencing germination at the greenhouse. No matter how many times I do this it is somehow always such a surprise that these first stirrings of life will eventually turn into big plants. Big plants that I will eventually eat.

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Tomato Seedlings

Photo by Gayla Trail  All Rights Reserved

I took this photo while visiting a gorgeous greenhouse last month in Austin, Texas. My own little tomato plants aren’t quite this big but have reached the two sets of true leaves mark and are starting to smell wonderful.

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