seedlings and the Crunchy Singularity

 On sills and shelves in homes and greenhouses in the north and west sides of Chicago, the seedlings for Ginkgo's next season await transplanting.

This year, I tried something new: starting collard seeds in cardboard tubes instead of peat pots or plastic seed pots. Most of the tubes were originally toilet paper or paper towel rolls. I did manage to start one collard in the bottom of the package for an individual compact fluorescent light bulb. This act that may have initiated the Crunchy Singularity; sorry about that. (Somewhere in the Pacific, a small island is spontaneously covered with a layer of raining hacky sacks.)



What the YouTube videos and other sites fail to mention is that you must be precise when building the seed starters from cardboard tubes, or else you wind up with a small leaning tower that you then have to secure using tape.

 After a few weeks, I transplanted seedlings to a more traditional arrangement. They should be ready for the garden in a couple of weeks.

 Further west, Dave started our tomato and pepper seedlings in donated greenhouse space.

Labels made from popsicle sticks are certainly green--but they can't beat a seed pot made from a CFL box.