
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!
