Seed Starting Marathon

Seed starting really begins in December for us. That’s when the seed companies send out those taunting catalogs with their tempting pictures and seductive prose describing each seed as the perfect specimen for your garden. We happily pour over those pages for days deciding what we will try this year. Do we grow using only tried and true seeds from the past or do we cave and purchase this year’s most award winning hybrids? Should we only get heirloom and open pollinated seeds or do we get those more expensive hybrids hoping to reap all of their promised improvements? How many varieties of each veggie or flower should we purchase? Do we want organic or will non-organic seeds do? The list of questions we ask is endless. Every year it occurs to us at seed purchasing time we really should have a list of what we want in hand before the first catalog arrives. Alas that has yet to happen.

This year, like most years, we ordered more seeds than we actual need. An all too easy feat to complete, but in answer to the questions above, we always make sure we have seeds we know have served us well in the past available. Many of those favorites are heirloom or open pollinated and we collect seed to have on hand but a few are hybrid and have to be purchased regularly. We often purchase a few new hybrids every year just to give them a try. As for how many varieties of a certain type of plant it really depends on what it is. For example we usually only grow one type of leek but at last count we have twenty one different tomatoes started this year. The leek is one we have always grown while the tomatoes include some new to us varieties like Red Zebra and Amish Paste as well as old favorites like San Marzano and Brandywine. As for organic verses non-organic we choose organic if it is an option but many of the varieties we purchase don’t have an organic option. So while we grow our seeds organically we don’t panic if the initial seed isn’t.

This year’s seed order was bigger than it has been in the past, partially because we’re still trying to find what veggies grow best in this new to us growing area and we have decided to expand our cut flower garden this year along with planting more flowers, both annual and perennial, in the food forest and the regular vegetable garden. The cut flower garden is simply to allow us to have hand tied bouquets for in the house and to give as gifts. The flowers for the vegetable garden and food forest are there to attract pollinators and beneficial insects. Those include borage, calendula and mint. Other plants, like lupine help improve nitrogen in the soil. And some are just pretty and are too big for our small cut flower garden. Perhaps we will have time to build landscaping gardens and some of those pretty plants will find a home closer to the house.

Most of our seeds arrived by mid-January this year. We then dug out the 10 X 20 trays and got them counted and cleaned up. Every year we replace broken trays and add to our total number of trays. That would be due to the additional seed we purchase each year. In the past we have used 72 plug trays to start our seeds and then we up-pot them to newspaper pots of the appropriate size. Mason jars are great for making these pots since we have lots and they come in several sizes. This year we started using soil blocks. We liked the idea of less plastic and with soil block and newspaper pots we only needed the plastic 10 x 20 trays. If we like the soil blocks we may slowly replace the 10 x 20’s with old cookie sheets and other metal trays.

Our first seeds were started in early February. This included celery, celeriac, some of the herbs as well as leeks and onions. We also started a few flowers such as snapdragons and rudbeckia goes in late in February. The real push for seed starting comes in March. Eggplants, tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos and ground cherry all get started indoors in March along with a host of flowers including calendula, marigold, celosia and several others. March is also when we start cold hardy seeds like cabbage, carrots, broccoli, spinach and many more in either cold frames or, for the first time ever for us, in the low tunnel.

Next month we will continue starting seeds. More brassicas, greens, cucumbers, squash and lots of flowers will all get started. Our hope is that we don’t run out of room for all of the seed trays we will have filled. We’re keeping our fingers crossed and planning to build a small greenhouse that we can heat with a small wood stove. Perhaps the challenge of finding room for all our trays was what motivated our new and entirely lovable puppy, Jack, to help out by digging through a tray of brassica while standing on another tray of seedlings. And he did it while our backs were turned for less than 30 seconds. Live and learn.

Happy growing!

Paper pots save on plastic and can be planted directly in soil