Seedling updates and new installation video!

Part 1:

After the Green Carpet Awards today, (at which the Garden won the student project award! Congrats, everyone!) Zach and I stopped by the greenhouse to check up on our precious seedlings and start some new melons. We passed a ferocious-looking game of volleyball happening in the Biolabs courtyard; I do not like volleyball (I think I have particularly tender wrists—much more suitable for transplanting than hitting volleyballs) and was thus very happy to duck into the building and escape to the greenery of the top floor.

Good news awaited us: the seedlings are progressing very nicely! Apart from a few eggplant  seedlings that did not seem to be germinating well, we found all of our trays bursting with new growth.

a shot of some onions, peppers, kale, tomatoes, chard, cabbage, and zinnias.

Chard is a very controversial vegetable among the gardeners. We seem to have a 50/50 split between those who adore it and those who detest it. I find myself leaning more to the latter—but I’m hoping that watching its journey from seedhood to adulthood will stir up some parental instincts and will grow to love it as if it were my own child.

lettuce, tomatoes, chard, peppers, brussels sprouts, kale

Here we have a nice mix of lettuce, tomatoes, chard, peppers, brussel sprouts, and kale. The tomato seedlings smell amazing already, like fresh tomatoes in July. They are my favorite.

lettuce and chard seedlings

Red Rosie lettuce seedlings!

more stuff

After thinning the tomato seedlings, we started a half-dozen peat pots of Mickey lee watermelons. They are icebox melons, which means they grow on space-saving vines and are small enough to fit into your refrigerator comfortably. When our Mickey Lee babies are all grown up, this is what they will look like.

They will be ready to eat in about 80 days. This is unfortunate, because I’ll be out of the country in mid-July! I won’t get to enjoy the Mickey Lee melons. But someone will.

PART 2:

Last week, Brian Shaban,  group leader of the Science Center electronics shop, set up two cameras (one in the Lowell Belltower, one in Claverly) to capture the installation of the garden and its inaugural workday through time-lapse video.  Thank you, Brian! After viewing the footage, I decided to add a few artistic touches of my own. Enjoy the finished product below.