Seed Starting

Throughout the winter I had been dreaming of this day.  Seed starting day.  I made it a goal for this year's garden to start as many of my plants as possible.   Well I can scratch that goal off the list.  I used an awesome FREE garden planner called Smart Gardener to plan this year's garden.  It was a one stop shop place for me as I could chose my conventional, organic and heirloom varieties and the tool would place them next to other plants that play nice together. To top it all off, you can then buy those very seeds from Baker Creek, Southern Exposure, Peaceful Valley or other suppliers straight from the tool!  I will go more in depth in another post, but for free I couldn't have been happier.

As this is my first year starting my seeds I do not know what kind of germination rate I should expect so I planted three times as many potential plants as I need and placed two seeds in each starter and pluck out the weaker of the two if both germinate.  Just typing that made me realize that what I did was probably overkill.

I had picked up a Burpee's starter tray that had these disks that will expand with the addition of water.  They worked well as long as the disk was the right way, otherwise the disk would expand sideways and I had to break up the compact disk.  Besides that, they worked out great.  With the clear shield on and out of the sun, I should start seeing my little guys popping up any day now.


I am also working on a basement grow light and watering system that will help give my little guys the best shot they can. Blight and beetles be damned!