Planting Seeds

 My makeshift potting table.

For my garden this year, I decided to give starting my own seeds a try. I settled on ordering all heirloom seeds from Baker Creek Seeds ( recommended by Stephanie) and was very pleased with their service. I ordered the seeds on Tuesday night and received them in the mail that Friday!

I wanted to go ahead and get at least the peppers and tomatoes started. Saturday was very sunny so I set up my own potting station out on the deck.

The varieties of seeds I ordered:

• Emerald Giant green pepper
• Lipstick red pepper
• Atkinson tomato
• Amish Paste tomato ( Good for canning)
• Cucumber Delikatesse
• Black Beauty zucchini
• Blue Lake bush bean
• Bright Jewels Cactus zinnia

Other than the Blue Lake beans, all the other varieties are new to me. I read the different descriptions and chose something that fit what I wanted. It will be an experiment to see what works well and whether or not we like the kinds we got!

 Seeds in pots ready to be brought inside.

For starting the seeds, I used starter pots I had saved from previous years, and various baskets and pans to set them in. When I ran out of starter pots, I made a few newspaper pots using these directions. I had some extra plastic containers like the ones that organic salad greens come in so I used one for planting zinnia seeds. I poked holes in the bottom for drainage.

Can you tell I'm trying to keep this low-budget? :-)

I planted 2 kinds each of tomato and pepper seeds and some zinnia seeds. Obviously, it's still too cold to plant much outside yet. I'll plant the bean seeds straight into the ground when it's warmer. I'll probably start the zucchini and cucumber seeds a little later or I can even wait and put them directly in the ground.

 Waiting for my seeds to sprout!

This morning, I discovered four zinnia sprouts! Yeah!

Have you started your seeds yet? What are your gardening plans for this year?