This is the week to get my tomato and pepper seeds started. The last frost date for our area is about 6 weeks away and the seeds need about that amount of time to get a good start.
Thursday my grandma will come over to give me a hand. I have about 150 tomato seeds, 5 different varieties and 100 pepper seeds to start. This may seem like an insane amount but I want to be sure to have enough to have a good crop and share seedlings with family and friends.
I want to plant 20-30 tomato plants this year to hopefully can and freeze enough to get us through this next year. As gander has mentioned, groceries are going up up up in price and anything is a help! We have all the jars we need and will only need to purchase the lids. It seems no one cans any more so boxes of canning jars keep getting delivered to our house! In fact I have a box on my driveway now!
You might wonder why you would start your own seeds…One big reason is the savings. One packet of heirloom amish paste tomato seeds was $2.75 for 50 seeds. I may be able to purchase 2 nice nursery grown tomato plants for that price, and probably not heirloom. I also like knowing how the plant was grown, from the beginning and what has been sprayed on it or not sprayed on it for that matter. This is also a great educational experience for the goslings. They get to see the seeds in the packet become the food on their plates. It always amazes me how much more willing they are to eat the produce from OUR garden.
You may have heard starting seeds is too complicated or too much work. I have little experience myself but the couple of times I have tried I have had great success with only a few hours work.
The supplies needed are:
- A growing medium such as a sterilized soilless mixture like Jiffy mix
- A container to grow in. Anything will work as long as it is sterilized (be creative, try yogurt containers, egg cartons, produce containers, old garden center flats), just run through dishwasher or soak in a 10% bleach solution
- The seeds, of course.
- A warm place for your seeds to start, such as a kitchen counter.
This is all you need until your seedlings sprout.
Once they have popped up out of the dirt you will need some kind of light source. A full day sunny window will work. We don’t have this option so we use artificial light. We use hanging shop lights with fluorescent tubes in them. We hang them from chains in the ceiling so they can be raised up as the plants grow. I will be sure to post pictures once we get it set up. We put the lights on a timer so the plants get 14 or so hours of light a day and water once a day.
I would love to hear from others out there who have had success or failure starting seeds at home.
The last few days have been busy ones. I have canned 8 pints of strawberry jam and 6 pints of strawberry rhubbarb jam . Last night I steamed and froze 3 gallons of spinach. Three gallons of spinach sounds like a lot until you steam it and measure it out into 4 pint sized bags! I didn’t mind because it was all free (from my grandma’s garden). She even washed it for me before she delivered it! I planted a whole packet of spinach and have nothing to show for it. I wasn’t surprised, the same thing happened last year. It apparently doesn’t like my soil. I have a good crop of lettuce ready to pick though.
