2013 Seed Starting Begins!

To ward off the February doldrums that always roll in, we've been planting seeds.  It feels so good to think about growing again!  We started hundreds of onions a week ago.

Look at all these sprouts!  We purchased young onions sown like this last year and it worked so well we decided to do it ourselves.

We started peppers today.  We will hold off on the tomatoes for a few weeks, but the peppers are always so slow we thought it would be good to get a significant head start this year.

We are still eating all sorts of produce from last years garden: winter squash, potatoes, onions, garlic, roasted peppers, tomatoes, and dry beans.  Our greens and cilantro in the cold frame are doing ok.  We moved the cold frame this past fall to a much less hospitable spot so we learned our lesson for next year.

Besides vegetables, we are also starting native plant seeds.  We planted an entire flat to milkweed, which is under the grow lights, but then started the rest of the seeds outdoors to undergo natural stratification.  We save pots picked up over the growing season so it's a pretty inexpensive venture....free seeds collected around the area and reused pots.  We did purchase this seed starting mix from Garden's Alive, but plan to start mixing our own this year.

Check out the cute chestnut oak germinated all on its own.  Many acorns in the white oak family do this making them easy to start.

Besides chestnut oak, we planted mapleleaf viburnum, basswood, white ash (yes we know - just acting hopeful) and a few others.

We plan to take advantage of a warmer day on Monday and do some more lasagna gardening out front to rid the area of grass.  We bought black-eyed susan, butterflyweed, purple coneflower and little bluestem seed from Ohio Prairie Nursery to plant this area.  We are super excited to see this area filled in with many blooms and hear it humming with insects.  

Happy weekend everyone....hope your February is marching right along.