15th December

 Last week I got a trail blocking tray for our squash seeds.

All our trays for bringing ours seeds on are the same size, for all the leeks, onions, Brassicas, and salads there are 144 cells these are small pots that are filled with compost then the seed.

The Squash trays only have twenty-eight cells, so the cells are much bigger, and it is because they grow much bigger before we plant them.

But this year we had planted all our Squash plants, but the pumpkins were still half the size because we had sown them later.

But I went ahead and planted them anyway, and they came on just a good as if we had left them until they were double the size.

So, I had a thought another trail.

If I got trays with 50 cells we could then plant with our planter, we can’t plant the squash plants with the planter at the moment because the root base is so big with the cells being bigger, and they will not drop down the shoot to get planted like we do with all the other field crops.

But with smaller cells they would slide down the shoot, which means we could plant all the ten thousand squash plants in one day.

Another saving is I will be using half the compost.

So, I received my trail tray it is filled with compost, and I have fifty uchi kuri seeds in it.

This is in the greenhouse with the heater on, obviously I won’t be able to plant these.

But if I can get it to two or four leaves with a tight root ball at this time of the year it should work, for next season.