SleepyHouse Garden 2010 - Seed Starting

I think I may have bought more seeds than we have garden space for. I was left alone at the store and went a little overboard. Some of our seeds are leftovers from last year, and some we harvested from the garden last year. It amazes me, the abundance that could potentially come from one tiny miracle of a seed.

This year we thought we would experiment with seed starting. Last year we sowed directly into the garden and our growing season wasn't quite long enough to harvest our melons. Maybe if we start the plants indoors, we'll be able to reap more benefits.

Always being frugal, we fashioned growing pots out of newspaper. I'm hoping this works. We really don't have any southern window exposure, and the other obstacle we have going against us is Yumi. She loves to nibble on stuff she shouldn't!

I'm also a little concerned about the hardening process, but we'll figure it out as we go along. If all else fails, we'll sow the left over seeds directly into the garden.

We're planning Roma tomatoes again, since these grew so beautifully for us last season. I'm almost out of homemade sauce in the freezer.

We're trying broccoli and carrots, our favorite two veggies, and I'm trying sugar snap peas for me. I'll also grow myself more Butternut squash.

We're shooting for melons again, even though they didn't work out so well last year. I want to grow sweet yellow watermelons and the boys are sticking with the traditional red.

We have lots of different varies of lettuces to try. We're going to sow these directly and use our inventive cloches, recycled CD cases. I'm adding chard and spinach to the mix as well.

We've never had any luck with herbs, but hopefully that will change. I want to grow Cilantro, garlic chives, basil and Rosemary. I even picked up some catnip for Yumi.

Flowerwise, I want to grow lots of Sunflowers. I thought it would be fun to surround the deck with a forest of sunflowers and in fall the birds can eat the seeds from the flower heads.

We're also going to try strawberries, although I know this is a long shot. I have a strawberry pot that came with root plants, but frankly, it was very difficult to recognize those roots! We went with an ever bearing variety just for fun. I don't really expect to be able to harvest lots of fruit. I will most like find an organic local farm to pick from. Last year we all got sick from the chemicals on the plants.

I also saw this neat sack pot for growing potatoes. You keep adding dirt as the plant grows up and by the end of the growing season, you dump the pot and pull out your potatoes.  I'm not buying the special sack, but I'm wondering if a regular pot would do? If I can find some good seed potatoes, maybe we'll give it a try.