Saturday, March 27, 2010

Spring Planting

Reese found some fun planting supplies at Lowe's the other day. He picked his own seeds: Cookie Monster watermelons and Big Bird Sunflowers.
We decided we better get our seeds started. I pulled out the 72 jiffy tray with coin style soil pellets. I can't remember if I ever did it differently or if the was the first method I attempted, but it worked well, so I'm sticking with it.
First we add warm water to hydrate the coin style pellets.
Then we use a leftover plastic fork (Kyle takes washable camping silverware in his lunchbox, but we have a few forks left from our un-eco-friendly lunch box days) to open the mesh netting and rough up the soil.
Then we put our seeds in. I like to make each row a different seed.
Then I use mini-post its to label what the seeds are so I don't get confused. I put the seed packets all together so I can refer back if I need to about spacing and harvesting and such.

We cover it with the included lid and place it on a shelf in the basement stairwell. The sun will hit it here. We'll plant in the ground in late May. I will have way more plant shoots than I have room to plant in my garden. In the past I have planted to many because my shoots were good I hated to waste them. But full grown veggie bearing plants are HUGE and I need to keep that in mind when planting. I'll pick the best to plant and then maybe even thin again. I still have some seeds left so if I have any duds I can start over. This jiffy greenhouse has Reese's watermelon and sunflowers as well as Beefsteak tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, chili peppers, green beans, carrots, and sugar pumpkins. I want to go back for grape or cherry tomatoes too.

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