Getting the First Seeds in for 2018

Filling in the seed starting tray.

 

With the March 22nd "Last Frost Date" coming up quickly, it is time to get some seeds started into plants. I had hoped to be a little more ahead in my garden this year, but it seems as if other things have been higher priorities. But, it was good to get started with some seeds, even if there might be too many of one plant planted.

I tried to save seeds from the tomatoes and cantaloupes that I planted last year. I thought I saved more tomato seeds, but when I went to open up the paper towels that were my seed collections, it was lacking tomato seeds. There were plenty of cantaloupe seed, which came from just two of the cantaloupes that grew in the garden. Luckily, I bought heirloom cherry and beefsteak tomato seeds to get started. I plan on having at least 4 tomato plants in the Front Micro Garden this year, so I don't need a lot of plants. But, I hope the ones that I did save were from the roma tomatoes I had in there last year, because they did well.

Anyway, after breakfast was done and before the entire family was ready for the day, we got out the Burpee Seed Tray from last year and added some new coconut core seed starters. I guess I just got enough for the refill of the tray, so I will need to get more for other items that I want to use for starting seeds. The kids made quick work of putting in the discs and then we poured warm water over them to get them to expand. After a few minutes, we were ready to get the "soil" ready for seeds.

With 32 squares to add seeds, it makes it easy to do a good amount of variety for the garden. However, I lost all my lettuce and herb seeds I had left over from last year due to a home making mouse. Because of the lack of lettuce seeds and paying a little closer attention to the different types of lettuce, I picked up a heat tolerant blend and we added that to a few squares. Of course, I put in the tomato seeds I saved plus some pepper seeds that I saved. The kids, put in the cantaloupe seeds.

They went a little over board and I think we have 12 squares planted with cantaloupe. As a family, we really like cantaloupe, I'm just not sure I have room for that many plants, but I'll try to get them planted. After the seeds were in and I made sure they were covered, it was time to setup the growing area.

Last year the light from the growing baker's rack was a little too much at night, so I needed to fix that issue. Also, I think I hung the LED lights a little too high, so I decided to hang them down a little bit, to give more light to planets and keep them from being leggy. By adding more "walls" to the baker's rack, I reduced the light spread and I hope also shine more light back on the plants as they grow.

The plan is to also have things growing on the second shelf of the baker's rack and I will improve the "walls" for that level as well. Until then, I expect that the plants to start showing themselves in a few days, if I am as lucky as I was last year.

The kids had fun helping out and Little Dean did a great job of assisting me in gluing the aluminium foil to the cardboard. Kathryn helped by sitting on my lap while I tried to tie the cardboard onto the baker's rack with my view obstructed by curly hair.

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