Monday, February 28, 2011

Garden Starts

I discovered a few years ago that I love to garden. I'm still learning (and probably always will be) especially having moved somewhere new last fall. The soil here is clay. From what I understand, I'm going to have to really work the soil over or I won't be growing anything but pottery. I hope to have a garden this year...

In the spirit of this hope, I started a few seed indoors. The season isn't long enough for green peppers to just be planted in the garden in the spring so I started some of those and decided I'd give some herbs a try while I was at it.

I tore a newspaper in thirds the long way,

found a container that I liked the size of,
wrapped a length of newspaper around it,
tucked the ends in,
pulled it off the jar and made a biodegradable container to put my sweet little seeds in.

I cut the top part off a gallon milk jug.  The milk jug works as a nice little green house for the seeds.  If it gets too warm, I can just take the lid off and let a little heat out.

and placed my newpaper pots inside. 
 
To help them stand a little better, I pour a some water in the bottom of each one.  That softens the paper so it doesn't knock itself over.
I figured out what I was going to plant where and went to it.
After having planted all these things, I got to thinking and remembered that the teacher of an herb growing class I took said she replaced the peas in her garden with basil.  Peas haven't even been thought about yet...I may  have started my basil too early...we will see.

I had a couple of helpers dump in some seedling mix.

we added the seeds and ended out with:
The container on the bottom right held doughnuts, I believe.  It works perfectly.
I just need to keep them moist and in the sun as much as possible.  Not having an accessible south facing window is not ideal but it is what it is...

Have you started planting anything?  What plans do you have for your garden?

4 comments:

  1. We actually just started our seeds this weekend, too. We are planting carrots, scallions, sweet bell pappers, oregano, sweet basil, and tomato. We'll probably add lettuce and a hot pepper, but I didn't have the seeds this weekend. I LOVE the biodegradable containers...reminds me of the ones for the VBS we did last year!

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  2. I'm going to start my tomotoes in a week or so. Tomatoes are one of my very favorite foods so I'm planning on growing a lot!

    What is VBS?

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  3. Thanks for visiting my blog, I'm following you, too.

    I actually bought a special tool for making little start containers in exactly the same way as you did... now I wish I had just used a jar! lol, oh well :)

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  4. Catherine, just know yours are extra fancy. :)

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