Well, something was bound to happen, even before I finished building that last bed for my plants to be. I have a bunch of seed starter trays going with several herbs and vegetables, and I made sure to label the sections.

I knew there might be some difficulties keeping things together, especially with those trays with the clear lids to simulate a mini greenhouse. Something always goes funky when I have a lot of water in the bottom and then I go to put it in my seed starter area outside. Water either sloshes everywhere because I filled it too much or I’m trying to fill the bottom tray and dislodge some seeds.

I forgot the trouble that could come from below.

I started on my beans and a few other plants (some are definitely gonna take longer than others). All of the trays have had a week and change to sprout. One, however, doesn’t seem to be sprouting. I think I got too much water in it and it’s been thoroughly soaked.

The real trouble is, all that water got sucked up by the Popsicle sticks I’ve been using to label each batch. And in that one, I can’t read the names I wrote on the wood.

I can barely read some of the others, too.

Ugh. Somehow it didn’t occur to me that the water would travel up and screw up my writing on the popsicle sticks. It should have, though. I think it did it before way back when, but I guess I had bigger sticks before, so maybe the damage wasn’t so bad.

So now I have a “mystery tray” I’m gonna have to figure out tomorrow.

It was supposed to rain big time today, but so far nothing (at least I got the beds mostly put together–just a couple missing bricks I’ve got temporary ones filling the spots because they aren’t as stable as the ones I need). After I’ve constructed the bean trellis and put it in the bed, I’m going to be going through my notes and seed bags to narrow down my mystery seeds. If it turns out I have to re-plant, then I’ll replant. These could well be the seedlings that require several weeks to germinate, though, but no telling til I figure out which is which.

Good thing I wrote the date down on the seed bags of when I put them out. there were two different dates, and that already narrows down the five seeds I may have to replant later… and definitely relabel.

I got actual garden labels today while I was out and about after work, so I’ve got a start on where to go from here. Just glad a few are readable.

It occurred to me that I should’ve had a numbering system for these mini-greenhouse trays, but I didn’t realize I’d be starting so many, or what would happen to the popsicle sticks.

Well, I’ve got a notebook full of stats I’m working on regarding planting and harvesting times and dates that are coming up, but also I should dedicate some pages to the seed trays and label the seeds in each one. That would be a useful map to have in case one type looks ready to transplant and I’ve gotta double check where to put it in the beds.

Ugh–I was hoping to do some building and planting, but it looks like I’ve gotta play detective first.

Oh well–live and learn…and get better labels any chance you get.