Starting The Garden

Since this winter has been so mild I decided to start my seeds earlier than normal.  Usually I start my seeds around the second week of March.  The general rule is to start the seeds approximately 2 months before the ‘average’ last frost.  Since this winter is not your ‘average’ winter I decided to dispel with the normal guidelines and took advantage of the spring-like weather we recently had and began my seeds.

Since I had already decided on what seeds I wanted to do this year (see previous post) I just had to get the seeds.  Last year I used the miracle-gro gro-ables seed pods since I started late and I knew they were quick to grow.  This year since I am starting at a ‘normal’ time I went with Burpee seeds.

Over President’s Day weekend the weather in my area was hitting upper 60’s/low 70’s so I decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather and start my seeds.  Usually I use the starter kits with 40 or so cells on a tray.  This year I am using a starter kit with 12 cells per tray.  The trays do not come with peat pellets like a normal starter kit so I am using Miracle-Geo Seed Starting Mix.
I decided to start off planting 2 cells each of the herbs.  My reasoning behind this in years past I would use the larger seed starting kit and didn’t want to waste the peat pellets so I would plant the same seeds in 6 cells at least.  I would end up getting a lot of plants starting and by the time I planted I had a lot of plants I did not need/use.  For the vegetables, most of the seeds followed the same planting pattern of 2 cells per vegetable.  The only exceptions were the roma and cherry tomatoes, I decided I had room in the tray so I did 3 cells of each..

I put my trays in my front window since there is a lot of morning and mid-day sun.  I have not had problems in the past with the seeds getting too cold if the weather decided to dip again into actual winter weather again.

Now I just have to sit back and wait to see what seeds decide to germinate and grow for me!