As A Learning Experience...

Before I start telling you this, I want to remind everyone that the words at the top of this page say “novice gardener”.

I started some seeds inside today.

I have never done this before, and the whole idea kind of intimidates me, but I figured, what the heck? The worst that could happen is that nothing will come up and I’ll go to the garden center in a month or so and buy transplants. The best that can happen is that I’ll get a few plants out of it. Either way, I would have learned something.

I used the small black plastic pots from the marigolds and other flowers I bought last weekend, and I used soil from the back yard, the same soil that I will ultimately be putting the transplants in (admittedly probably not the best choice, but I don’t have anything else on hand and no time to get out to buy organic potting soil, which is my preference). I did water them with a mixture of AgGrand Natural Fertilizer 4-3-3 (Nitrogen, Phosphorus and Potassium) so I’m hoping that they will get the nutrients they need and be okay. They are sitting on a seedling mat which warms the root area about 10 degrees or so (or will, when they start to develop roots) and I have put “domes” made of Ziploc bags over the pots.

This is pretty low tech.

I figure in 7 – 10 days I’ll know whether or not I’m going to get anything out of them. I put in seeds for Habanero peppers, Hansel Eggplants, Bush baby zucchini (all miniatures that will be transplanted to pots on the deck), Hybrid pickling cucumbers and black beauty zucchini that will go into the ground. I’m not sure where I’m going to put the black beauty zucchini. If I could end up with just one good plant to put in the ground I would be satisfied. I don’t think I need more than one of them anyway. We’ll see. If I get enough eggplant plants I will put two of those Hansels in the ground. Or maybe one Hansel Eggplant and one Zucchini, as I had originally planned for two eggplants. I did find out that the Zucchinni should be on the potato side of the garden and not with the tomatoes. Also, I think that in my empty squares on the tomato side of the garden I’m going to plant nasturtiums, as good companion plants for the tomatoes and cucumbers.

The tomato and pepper transplants are still doing well. They started getting a little yellow, so we watered them with the AgGrand Natural Fertilizer 4-3-3 and hope they’ll look perkier tomorrow.

My husband also took a peaked-looked basil plant which has been sitting in a disconnected aerogarden for a few days, and got that into a pot outside. We will bring it in at night till it gets permanently warm outside. It may perk up. I poked a few more basil seeds in there along with it – from the same seed packet that the basil plant came from. I grew these seeds last year and they came up like crazy with no problem, so I would expect them to do well. If not now, then I’ll put them in a pot with organic potting soil in another month or so and they’ll come up well then.