Snow,burrrrr, no wait today its warm, now mud

Ok, yesterday we couldn't make stone because it was too cold. My fingers froze trying to take care of the chicks. Today its warm and now there is mud everywhere. I sure am glad we got the cement shed reinforced with new tarps and an old back drop from my photo days.

Yesterday we ran the heater for the chicks as well as the heat lamps, today I turned the water cooler on for them. Good grief. I am putting more and more plant starts in there because I figure if I am regulating the temperature for the chicks, it will be regulated for my plants.

Today I re potted 42 Romaine lettuce plants and have about that many more to do. Then many others as well. A tray of green peppers, a tray of loofah, a tray of petunias, etc. I sure am glad to have learned to make the newspaper pots, sure saves on peat pots. At 22 pots for $2.00 it adds up fast. I did figure out that I can use a sharpie to mark the newspaper but to do it before I water them of course, so there is a bit more saving, no Popsicle stick markers. Each tray of the pellets starts 72 so if I bought peat pots to re pot them in, which I did several of them, its costs, $6.00 for the original tray with the peat pellets, about $7.00 for 3 inch peat pots and then the seeds. So I would have at least $14.00 invested in 72 plants not counting the original planting tray because I can reuse them, but it is including the potting soil. So that makes the seedlings cost me about 20 cents each. If I use the soil blocker and then newspaper pots that takes the cost down to just the potting soil, so $10.00 off. So $4.00 divided by 72 =about 6 cents each.

So by using the soil blocker and the newspaper pots I can cut the cost of each seedling from 20 cents each to about 6 cents each. That is more like it. If I can sell them at $1.00 each it makes a better profit, and I can have leeway to make deals if I want. Like $1.00 each or 6 for $5.00 or something like that. So even if I messed up my calculations I have some room for error.

I will be using my soil cuber to start more seeds today as well. Sharon has been saving and bringing to me the waxed soy milk cartons that Jace drinks and I cut them in half. In each half I can put two soil block cubes, each having 20 mini soil cubes, so each half a carton holds 40 plant starts. I figured this is a good way to start the flowers I want to grow. So far I have 4 or 5 cartons so that makes 8 or 10 halves so that makes 320 or 400 flowers I can plant in a very small area.

If I can then transplant the flowers and/or veggies to newspaper pots and sell each pot for $1.00, I should be able to pay for my supplies and eventually even make a buck or two. Cool.