One problem arose after another this year, mostly my own fault. By the end of the growing season there were few new seedlings left.

Trouble began in March with the three flats of seedlings from last year’s crosses, which I had recently brought into the greenhouse. The greenhouse is also a convenient retreat for a cat, who sleeps there on occasion when I leave the door from the garage open. Sometimes—rarely—does he get shut there overnight…

But one morning just a few days later I walked in to find both the cat and this:

3-9-24 Flats of potting media make a suitable litter box in a pinch. Under the media in the middle flat is a fresh calling card.

I salvaged what seedlings I could and immediately transplanted them to plug trays. The parentage of half was lost, which hurt, especially for planning future crosses.

Later, not to be outdone by the cat—who, by the way, still lives—I let the trays go dry and lost even more seedlings.

Once in plug trays, seedlings should be moved outdoors as soon as possible for successful transplanting—they survive much better when they are grown on outdoors. This year that move came too late. Because we were planning to add onto our house, I had to relocate my setup for growing and hardening off seedlings, which was in the way of the addition. That delayed moving the seedlings outdoors and in turn delayed transplanting them to the field, by which time the weather had turned hot.

There were ~400 seedlings at this point—enough to plant a double row—but by midsummer most had died . If I had known what would happen, I could have instead transferred the seedlings to larger plug trays, grown them over the summer in the greenhouse, and transplanted them in the fall when the weather was cooler. Although more work, at least there would have been something to show for it next spring.