Let The Seeds Begin~

In the dreary month of January, I, like any self respecting, cooped- up -counting the days until Spring- Gardener… am obsessed with my seed catalogs!

Promising myself to can, preserve and freeze every crumb of vegetable these seeds will produce- I begin to shop.

The truth is, I am addicted- to seed packets ( not to mention plants, bulbs & tubers!)

Each new variety of Cherry Tomato peaks my interest. Eggplant varieties- I want to try them all. I wind up with enough lettuce seeds to feed an entire community. And! Don’t even get me started on my passion for Zinnias, Sunflowers and Nasturtium. The herb garden spills bigger every year. The prettier the seed pack… the more I add to cart.

But, I am a Gardner and this is what I am supposed to be obsessed about.

My career was spent primarily in the warmth of greenhouses but I am now growing into being a ‘homesteader’, (of sorts) here in rural Kingwood Township NJ. Sprouting seeds has been trial and error. I always say I learn more from the errors than the success so by now I should be an expert- but I am not!

I have invested in a serious grow light structure that I purchased from Gardners Supply Company~ www.gardners.com. I highly recommend their lighting fixtures for seed starting, the quality is incomparable. I then added heat mats that I purchased from Amazon but you can buy them on many gardening sites as well- One brand I use is BN-LINK but shop around….

I prefer reusable plastic trays with built in cells for starting my seeds- I worked with many styles of peat pots but they dry out too quickly for me with our heating system. The plastic trays have removable plastic hoods to aid in humidity and warmth.

Check your zone- I am in 6B- Find out your frost dates (farmers Almanac usually has a great chart) then check your seed packet- they will tell you when to start your seeds. I tend to move up my seed planting dates by a couple weeks with my nightshades: tomato, pepper, eggplant, they seem slow to start for me and I want them well established before I plant them into my garden. Others like Peas, nasturtium and Zinnia - I direct seed in the ground. Your seed packets are a world of information on seed starting, germination rates and planting information.

So dive into those catalogs, pour over those online seed companies and break that winter spell with the promise of a new Spring!