Time to Plant the Tomatoes! I Love Starting Seeds.

There may be snow on the ground, but there are tomato seeds growing on my greenhouse sunporch! In my particular zone of the USA, mid to late February is the perfect time to start the tomato seeds. You want nice, healthy starts by the time May 3rd gets here, so that they can go right into the garden! I listed some of the seeds I've started on the back of this envelope. I thought this would be fun to trim out and make a page of it in my art journal. I can draw flowers all around it!

Seed packets from the store

I don't know why, but last year I had ordered some fairly expensive Burpee seeds, and they didn't do well at all. In fact, it was the 20-cent to one-dollar seed packets I picked up at the store that did the best of all. So, this year, that's what I'm going with. I've spent less than five bucks, and already have enough for my kitchen garden.

I like my kitchen garden to have a lot of diversity--vegetables and herbs mixed together, cutting flowers, and marigolds in every corner to guard them all. Marigolds have natural antioxidants and can actually protect against some diseases.

Tomatoes and leeks take the longest to grow--so I've started several pots. It's good to cover them and keep them warm and moist until they sprout up, and then after that they need sunshine. Sometime in April when I have healthy starts, I will take them all outside during the day to begin hardening them off before they go live in the garden. My goodness, it's like having children!

I can't wait to put those radish seeds straight into the garden in March! The lettuces too.

I am starting some basil seeds right in this egg carton. I can close the lid to keep them warm until they sprout up!

Basil seeds are tiny and they don't mind being in a small container. I've got 18 started here. In May, I'll put the starts in the garden around their companion tomato plants, and then all summer long I'll keep throwing more basil seeds in the garden so that I constantly have a supply of fresh young basils for my pesto, pasta and salads. Can you tell I love basil just a little?

I use all kinds of ways to label everything--clothespins, Popsicle sticks, and old plant markers. This is a tray of big boy hybrid tomato seeds--so I just clipped one clothespin to it. These pots are big enough so that I don't have to transplant the seedlings when they get bigger.

The top shelf of my potting bench--although I do the dirty work here, I keep it very fun and festive too.

I have used everything you can imagine for pots to start my seedlings. Some years I do buy those nice seed-starting trays, but this year I am using what I have on hand and improvising too--there is no need to spend a bundle when you are starting seeds. Use pudding or yogurt cups washed out with a hole punched in the bottom for drainage, half-pint milk cartons (like we did in grade school) and recycle those plastic pots you buy starts in--it all works great, and is worth the trouble to grow food not lawns!

Eat, Write, Dream, and Stitch in the sun.





 

Seeds of Happiness

There is a saying that you can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt. You can grow a lot of joy too. I once had a theatre professor who actually wrote a play called "Seeds of Joy." It had a few runs in a couple of different cities, and I was in it during one of those runs. All I can remember is that I played a disfigured woman with a piece of black lace over my entire head--you never saw my face. I was in one scene. Talk about no joy and a thankless role! Hmmmf! (uh-oh, the diva is surfacing)

 
But let's face it. You can't be a diva when you're digging in the dirt. You plant these little seeds, and they do bring a lot of joy, because they need you. Taking care of your garden is like taking care of yourself. Planting, repotting, digging, weeding, pulling, watering, pruning...things start growing. Including your humble spirit. You work and work on it, and one day, you walk out there on a sparkling, clear, sunny summer morning, inhaling the fragrance and looking at your live artwork as you sip a big mug of coffee, and something occurs to you. This must have been the root of at least one moment that someone experienced in the Garden of Eden. (before all that ugly business with the snake, which by the way could have been solved simply by having a few cats around) Wait. Did Eve have her coffee? I hope so. It seems like paradise would not have been complete without some coffee beans. Anway, there in your garden, all of this wonderful, blooming, herb and veggie basket of paradise is there before you, like magic. Sometimes I see those shows about how the sun could blast the Earth at any moment, and the Mayans think it's all going to be over by 2012. So I never take a moment in my garden for granted.

Mesclun lettuce seeds go right into the garden in March--they like cool weather.

I think God blesses you in a garden. I know it is a gift, and something I'm so fortunate to have each summer. I can't wait until the time comes again when I can pick some sprigs of lemon thyme and eat another sweet, warm tomato freshly escaped from its vine. 

Ahh. Garden dreams. And so, the prep work begins now. I go through dozens of stored seeds, and make some choices. Then I turn to Burpee and do some catalog shopping for more seeds. I sketch out a new plan--I have one big middle plot and three raised beds to the side--I want to make the most of the space and plant my favorite herbs, veggies, and cutting flowers. In the second week of February, I start the first tray of tomato seeds. Each week, I plant more trays of vegetables, herbs and flowers on my greenhouse sunporch, and it fills up until we can't hardly walk around out there. As the plants get healthy, some get transferred into bigger pots, and wait for their day.

In March the lettuce and radish seeds go right into the garden and get to have the space all to themselves for a while! My husband goes out and works the soil for me, and I tend to all the seedlings spending their childhood on my greenhouse. The first planting day in early May is when I am on my hands and knees, crawling around the garden bed and happily planting. I have to make sure I give some starts enough space, and yet I want to work in as many plants as possible. I also plant some seeds with the starts, like a few zukes and spaghetti squash which seems to do really well when grown right in the garden from seed. I also trim the garden in marigold starts and seeds--their natural antioxidants guard against some diseases and pests--probably more than I'll ever know! But I like to keep things organic.

So here we are in January. There are HUGE snow flakes falling outside my window in the Ozarks right now. My greenhouse is happily yet sadly clean and spacious--save for the plants that are enjoying their overwintering time, and of course my cats who love to sun themselves out there. Tonight, it's me, a cup of chamomile-vanilla tea, and a Burpee catalog. Seeds. Joy.

Eat from the garden, Write about your garden, Dream of your garden, Sew Seeds at all times.