Saturday, February 09, 2013

Seeds Starting Time!!

Spring cannot come soon enough here in Northern Ontario, Canada.
So the fur-bearer forecaster says we'll have spring in another  six weeks. Yeah, I don't put much stock in whether a groundhog sees his shadow.  Whatever.
What I do put stock in is one growing one's own food.
If you've read my blog for any amount of time, you know I'm a big advocate of growing food, not lawns, no matter how much space one has.
So I'm happy to report that it's finally seed starting time!

At the beginning of the week, we hit our favorite TSC store and rounded out our seed supply with some more vegetable and herb seeds. Mom got a cabinet that has allowed us to move up from two plastic boxes, allowing us to keep everything in one place. All but one missing seed catalogue are in there, along with our gloves and tools, and of course all our seeds. Also this week, we started a few seeds in peat pellets on trays that now reside in an east-ish facing window. We started mesclun, pickling onions, grape sized tomatoes, spring onions, mini bell peppers, sweet basil, lamb's lettuce, crookneck squash, and we started radish sprouts in a jar! (Our alfalfa sprouts were such a hit a few weeks ago, we decided to branch out)

I will admit that all those seed catalogues were extremely tempting. It can be very easy to order twenty different types of heirloom tomatoes when one is stuck inside with -30 temperatures! I wrote out a very long list and set it aside for a few weeks, and then approached it rationally. Instead of twenty different types, I only ordered four. In addition to the tomato seeds we already have, I think we'll get a pretty good variety this coming summer. Now if I could just find my T&T Seeds catalogue so that I can order those purple raspberries, Saskatoon Berry bushes and strawberries!
Hurry up spring!

Current temperature: -6 C, or 21 F
Sky: Overcast
Light breeze