Rosalind
Deeply Rooted
Here in New England, it is almost time to start seeds for spring planting. Today I got a couple of big heating mats and my flats & dirt mix. Oh boy!
Last year I didn't start things till March. That turned out to be a bad idea--without the heating mats, the plants were teeny and barely grew. They sprouted, but in about 2 months of constant fussing, they only got about 4" tall with maybe 4-6 real leaves. I tried to direct sow curcurbits and got about four plants out of several packets of seeds. And those were four very spindly, pathetic little plants. The only direct sown stuff that did very well was, of course, zucchini.
This year, I'm following my neighbor's instruction to plant early indoors and move things outside under covers in April. Five flats on heat mats and another flat in the greenhouse window. If the seeds leftover from last year are OK, I'll have 15 kinds of tomatoes, 10 kinds of peppers (lots of hot peppers), 8 kinds of squash, and various cabbages, broccoli, leeks etc. Plus a bunch of herbs--bergamot, coneflower, pennyroyal, chamomile, basil and all the usual culinary herbs.
Naturally, all the stuff I was totally gonna get done without garden chores to do, has not been done. Was thinking of machine-stitching an easy scrap quilt, actually, because it's embarrassing how little I got done over the winter...
Are you ready? Have you got all your seeds and flats and potting mix? Got the beds all planned out?
Last year I didn't start things till March. That turned out to be a bad idea--without the heating mats, the plants were teeny and barely grew. They sprouted, but in about 2 months of constant fussing, they only got about 4" tall with maybe 4-6 real leaves. I tried to direct sow curcurbits and got about four plants out of several packets of seeds. And those were four very spindly, pathetic little plants. The only direct sown stuff that did very well was, of course, zucchini.
This year, I'm following my neighbor's instruction to plant early indoors and move things outside under covers in April. Five flats on heat mats and another flat in the greenhouse window. If the seeds leftover from last year are OK, I'll have 15 kinds of tomatoes, 10 kinds of peppers (lots of hot peppers), 8 kinds of squash, and various cabbages, broccoli, leeks etc. Plus a bunch of herbs--bergamot, coneflower, pennyroyal, chamomile, basil and all the usual culinary herbs.
Naturally, all the stuff I was totally gonna get done without garden chores to do, has not been done. Was thinking of machine-stitching an easy scrap quilt, actually, because it's embarrassing how little I got done over the winter...
Are you ready? Have you got all your seeds and flats and potting mix? Got the beds all planned out?
