And so it begins! I got those first seeds into the soil today and now I anxiously await their germination to take place. It’s going to be a long week or three in some cases.
I’ve done a bit of re-purposing over the winter in preparation for starting my seeds. First, I saved and sanitized all my bedding plant cell pots and flat trays from last year; the ones that I got with nursery grown plants in them. I’m not using the cell pots yet, but reserving those for the first transplanting. I also have some yogurt and cottage cheese tubs for later transplants.
To start the tiny seedlings I’ve been saving cardboard tubes- the kind from toilet paper, paper towels, and even Christmas gift wrapping. I cut the tubes up so they are roughly 3-4” long and filled them with organic potting soil. The potting soil has a little bit of unflavored gelatin diluted with warm water mixed into it. This serves two purposes- one is to hold the potting soil together in the bottomless “pots” and the other purpose is to provide a tiny bit of nutrients to the seedlings when they emerge. I have also saved egg cartons for seed starting- the cardboard kind, not styrofoam.
So far I have all of my tomatoes (except for the chocolate cherry tomatoes which have yet to be shipped- thanks for nothing Park Seeds!) potted up, along with globe artichokes, romanesco cauliflower, sweet bell peppers, and lemon balm. I intended to have most of this planted a week ago, so I decided to hold off a week on the scallions which I originally planned on planting today as well. I’ll wait and put the scallions in when I do the broccoli and cucumbers next weekend. Hopefully by then I will start to see some action in the trays!
So, the toilet paper “pots” are sitting on the re-used trays covered with a translucent white trash bag under a fluorescent grow light. The trash bag keeps in the moisture and heat which builds from the warmth of the light. No fertilizers are needed at this point since I used the gelatin mixture.
It’s nice to have dirty fingernails again after so many months trapped in the house!
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