It's Time!

It's that time of year again to start your seeds! Well, if you really must know, it was that time a few weeks ago and a few weeks ago these seeds were planted. But if you've been keeping up, you know I've been too busy sewing to post about this until now.

First things first: get out the seed stash and divide them into groups (herbs, flowers, tomatoes, direct sow lettuce/peas/beans, and other indoor starter seeds).

The stash.

The lettuces, all direct sow once the frost has passed. I never could grow spinach successfully.

More direct sow seeds. I'm pretty pumped about the chickpeas and carrots!

All our herbs. These will be started now.

Our tomatoes. The Wild Cherry Tomato was the best investment ever. Harley loves them! These will be started now also.

More seeds to start indoors. I am especially interested in the zucchinis.

Some onions. We will grow some in pots and some we will start outdoors in our planter boxes.

Our flower seeds. We have a small section for flowers only (we keep finding glass and rusty nails in there so it probably isn't suitable for food), and I'm trying to keep the flowers low-maintenance hence the Black Eyed Susans. The colourful paper are leftover wedding favours from when we got married. They are seed papers!

Then, grab a bucket, pour in some potting soil, and get it nice and moist.

I love the smell of warm dirt. For reals!

Then, grab your vessel of choice, load them up with soil, label them appropriately (we always name our plants), and plant your seeds according to the directions on the packet!

It is probably important to note that in addition to the ceramic pots and the compostable pots in the background of the previous photo, we also experimented with containers:

Toilet paper tubes. Don't do this. HA. Ours went moldy like the next day and sadly, Zelda, Zorba, Zala, and Wendy are no longer with us as a result.

Our egg shells, however worked great!

Meet Walter the Wild Tomato!

And they all sit upright if you just keep the carton. Ain't they cute lookin'?

My only suggestion is that if you do use egg shells, you rinse your shells out and let them dry completely before using. We didn't and they stink a little.

The reason why we did the tomatoes in egg shells is because my tomatoes last year, at the beginning of the season, had blossom end rot, which is caused by a calcium deficiency.

(Say hello to Bran, named after Bran Stark, for all you nerds out there. It starts tomorrow!!!) One of the solutions to prevent blossom end rot is to crush egg shells (since they are high in calcium) and sprinkle it on the dirt above the roots. I figure by planting in egg shells, I eliminate one step and recycle the shells. We'll see how it turns out, though!

Anywho, I suppose the eggs are also appropriate since it is Easter tomorrow? Since, you know, when Jesus rose from the grave, he hid a bunch of chocolate eggs around each of the apostles' houses. :)

Happy Easter! Enjoy your family time!

{Oh gawd the 80s! Stahp!}