Anticipa(aaayyyy)tion

Good ole Carly Simon:
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway

But I'm sure we never thought it would snow, get up to 50, snow, get up to 50, snow and so on...

But forget about the outdoors, nature, and shadowy-sissy Punxsutawaney Phil; I've started my first batch of seeds indoors. I know, I'm jumping the gun a bit, BUT I have those gorgeous cold frames my hubby built me, so I'll move my plants outdoors mid march or so and put them in the cold frames. Between that and my uncanny ability to make things die, the timing should work out just right for anything that survives, and if it doesn't then I'll give myself a bit of time to recover.

But here's how I started my seeds this year...

I started out with my handy dandy bucket. Anything works as long as it's clean. If it's not, most instructions I've read say to wash everything with a 10 percent bleach and 90 percent water solution, especially if you're using pots from the previous year. Unless you want things to catch disease and die.

I got these fantastic all natural seed starting soil bricks. You just add 8 quarts of water and it makes a LOT of soil, all from a teeny tiny lightweight block of dirt. (they are GREAT if you have little space for bags of dirt or are afraid that bugs have crawled inside the big bags and will gnaw on your hand when you stick it inside--it's not an irrational fear)

It's great to get the dirt wet first, rather than plant things in dry dirt and then pour tons of water on top, either floating the seed out of place or risking mold or damping off- or so I've read.

Mound up the dirt to the top, even creating a convex bubble at the top, since the dirt might sink down a bit when it gets watered.
I got these peat pots at the Christmas Tree Shop -$.25 for 20 last fall. I like them because they show when they are wet and dry very easily. It's the idiot's best friend for determining when to water.

Use a pencil, a stick, a carrot, rolled up dollar bills, whatever you want, to push a little hole at the center of your pots. Put in one or two seeds. I do two because I am paranoid that one will never grow. Push a little bit of the soil over the seed. VIOLA.

Label your pots and water. FROM THE BOTTOM. That probably explains why nearly all of my seedlings died last year. I always watered from the top (when I watered) until they were nearly floating. My seeds were like Noah's ark, adrift in a giant ocean of water, with no land in sight.

I put my grow light and heat lamp on during daylight, and turn them off at night. I should probably get a thermometer to check the temperature, but i made sure my heat lamp wasn't so close that it was roasting the seeds.

So far, I've got Spinach, Broccoli, Cauliflower and Brussel Sprouts. I'm crossing my fingers on this venture. I have a tendency to kill anything not permanently set in the ground. These poor little guys... Hopefully blogging will keep me honest and watering. I'd hate to disappoint the dozen or so of you who have somehow misinformedly determined I am knowledgeable enough to give advice. :)

I'm looking forward to starting the rest of my indoor seeds in the next few weeks, though I typically do well with direct sowing rather than the indoor method. But here's a view of the handy-dandy spring planting planner I got from Organic Gardening Magazine.

The left column lists the vegetable, the center lists how many weeks before or after the last spring frost seeds should be sown, and the right column is blank so the dates can be filled in according to zone. It takes all the guesswork out of it, for those of us who really wonder if we have to wait at all.

Hey, Lowes is putting everything out, it's time to get going, right?

Anyone have any success with starting seedlings indoors? Dismal failures? Warnings? Helpful hints?