It's the Final Sproutdown!

After my not-so-hot first time planting experience last season, I decided this time around that buying a lot of seedlings for the garden was both too expensive and too depressing to make it worthwhile. It's expensive because it's about $2.50 to $5 a seedling and you need quite a few to fill up a row. And it's depressing when every seedling you buy wilts and dies within 10 days. Been there, done that. Don't want to do it again.

I decided that I'd buy just a handful of seedlings this time around and try my hand at starting more things from seed. Last time we did great sewing seeds directly in the garden even though many of them died before producing anything. This time I thought we might have even better luck starting the seeds indoors and then transplanting lots of seedlings. It just feels more economical to try it this way and I feel that with our garden there's safety in numbers.

I found a little mini-greenhouse seed starter kit at our local hardware store for under $5, so the price was right for this experiment. The directions were touted as simple enough for a child to understand, so it was perfect. It said to add a special seed starting mix to each little pot, so we filled the little pots with Miracle Grow potting mix because that's all we had on-hand.



Then it said to make a hole and drop two seeds in each hole. I cannot wrap my head around why you put two seeds in one hole. But we followed the directions - reluctantly.



We got a big stash of seeds and read the backs to find out which ones can be started indoors. I let the boys pick out which ones they wanted to try. This involved them in the gardening process and gave me two scapegoats to lay the blame on when this little seed starting gig doesn't work. I can call it the "children's project" and just roll my eyes at their inexperience when nothing sprouts. I'm not above this.



So after packing the little pots, we grabbed a pencil to make holes in each one somewhat close to what the backs of the seed packaging suggested. Then we started planting two seeds in each hole.



There are 12 little sections with 6 pots in each one. We chose 8 different types of seeds - Zucchini, cantaloupe, broccoli, watermelon, cauliflower, okra, tomatoes and lettuce. Then we were left with 4 empty sections. I divided these sections up into 8 rows and decided to see what would happen if we only planted one seed of the above-mentioned types in each pot since the two-seeds-per-pot nonsense bothered me. Is there any question as to why we can't grow things? I doubt everything I read.



I discovered that it's essential to make a little chart in a notebook to record where each seed type was planted. And then it's even more essential to put a sticker somewhere on the seed starter kit showing where at least ONE of the seed types is planted so you can figure out which way up the thing goes when you're referring to your chart in your notebook.

Then we watered them and put the top on them. The directions said to put them under a light, keep the soil wet and wait for life to blossom. So I stuck them on the patio since we have sunlight out there. I can't imagine they'd be better in the house than on the patio, so that's where they're living. We're crossing our fingers that at some point something sprouts.

Tommorow is D-Day, or is it?

We had a nice little surprise in the mail this week. Our seeds arrived from Seed Savers Exchange. I'm quite intrigued with the little packets of seeds, but can't imagine we'll ever get them to grow into real live veggie-producing plants. The seeds came really quickly, much to our surprise, and arrived with a little card saying that Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit organization dedicated to preserving more than 25,000 endangered vegetable varieties. Fancy huh? So now I have the added pressure of making sure these little packets of seeds grow so I don't disappoint the Exchange - I know they won't know...but I have serious guilt issues. Seed guilt. I'll add it to the list.
The boys and I went to Lowe's and Home Depot this morning to buy our seedlings. When I see the cost of seedlings, I see why it pays to start from seeds. But our plan was to do half seeds and half seedlings our first year, which is much less intimidating than an entire garden of seeds. We brought the seedlings home and loaded them into the boys' little red wagon. As we're loading them it started to rain. I panicked and quickly pulled the wagon into the garage so the plants wouldn't get wet. Yeah, I really did that. Then I realized that the seedlings actually need rain, so I ran into the garage and pulled the wagon out... as the rain stopped. I'm a natural, don't you think?
Tomorrow was supposed to be the big planting day. August 1st - our gardening D-Day - the first day of the Fall planting season. But there has been a snafu. We've got the seeds, the seedlings, the garden has been tilled, hoed and left to sit ready for planting. But the rain. Oh the rain. Oh the never-ending rain. If you don't live in FL you don't know that much of FL was once a swamp and the developers came in and built subdivisions on the swamps. So when it rains, our yard returns back to its prehistoric swampy state. Aidan is just shy of 50 lbs and when he stood in the garden today his boot was surrounded by a little pool of water. It makes a fun squishing sound when you walk and it moves like a pit of quicksand. But something tells me that this swampy wet garden isn't the optimal medium for planting seeds and seedlings. Although I can find nothing online that says you can't plant in this - I have a gut feeling that it won't be a good thing. So now what? Do we wait for the rains to stop? That's another month at least. And then we're in the meat of hurricane season. What do we do with this wagon full o' seedlings? I think Farmer B and I need to have a gardening conference tonight and figure out what to do next. This is not in the gardening book.

The Quest for the Holy Seeds

I've been reading up on what types of seeds to buy for our garden since we'll be planting our August vegetables next week. Turns out you can’t actually buy seeds around here this time of year. Farmer B went to Lowe’s and Home Depot and was told at both places that they have already sent back their seeds and won’t get anymore until spring. Apparently they haven’t read our gardening book where it talks about the Fall planting season. You have to buy seeds online or choose from the world’s smallest seed packet selection at our local nursery. They have a cardboard box jammed underneath a giant cooling fan that has about 4 vegetable seed packets in it. It’s very inviting.

It turns out that the Rolls Royce of vegetable seeds are Heirloom seeds. These are considered the aristocracy of seeds and are even the focus of gardening groups and seed exchanges. I bet those are some happening get-togethers. Some Heirloom seeds are for very rare plants and vegetables, but most are just plants from good stock and old lines – most are from the 1920s or earlier. A selling point is that if you save the seeds from an Heirloom plant you can plant them again next year and get the exact same plant. Typical seeds that you buy are sterile. Who knew?

We’re going to do ½ seeds and ½ seedlings this year. I feel that we have more of a chance of something growing if we do it that way. If we plant some seedlings we're guaranteed to have at least a few days with something green growing in the garden and that will just feel good. Seeds intimidate us, but then again so do gardens and look where we are today. Farmer B and my dad spent about 3 years trying to grow grass from grass seed and never had one single blade sprout. Ever. So we crossed our fingers, took the plunge and ordered our seeds from Seed Savers Exchange. This is “the” place to buy seeds, if you’re cool hip gardener, that is. We ordered these seeds:

Cornfield pumpkin squash – The boys are adamant that we grow a pumpkin for Halloween. This one is listed as their top choice for use as both carving pumpkins and for fall decorations. It says they are perfectly shaped 12-15 pound fruits are 12-16" wide and 10-12" tall. Ha - we'll see about that.

Burpee’s Stringless Bean - This fancy bean was introduced in 1894 by W. Atlee Burpee who obtained their stock seed from N. B. Kenney. At the time it was claimed to be the only absolutely stringless green podded bean. This one looked like a bean the kids would eat, so it won the bean contest.

Giant Musselburgh Leek - It says these are enormous size, 9-15" long by 2-3" diameter. We got these because we eat leeks instead of onions and because saying you took an "enormous leek" in your garden is just plain worth it.

Scarlet Nantes Carrot - It says these are 7" long and have bright reddish-orange flesh, fine grained, nearly coreless, great flavor, and are sweet and brittle. Aidan wanted a bright purple carrot that was listed as “spicey” but we gave that a miss and this carrot was the consolation prize.

DeCicco Broccoli - This broccoli was introduced to U.S. gardeners in 1890 and since broccoli is the boys' favorite veggie to have with dinner, this one seemed to look most like typical store-bought broccoli.

The rest of our plants will be from seedlings acquired at Lowe’s...poor little homeless seedlings just sitting in pots cooking in the hot sun waiting for a family to adopt them. We do not know why we can’t plant them until August when they’re sitting there in the July sun growing in pots, but the book says we can’t, so we won’t. We’re sticklers that way.