Today, a seed. Tomorrow a fresh, juicy slice of tomato topped with a slice of homemade mozzarella cheese and a basil leaf – YUM!
….but I’m getting ahead of myself. Back to the seed.
My gardening plans are to start small and expand each year. For instance, last year I planted strawberries and bush beans (green beans). This year, those strawberries should actually start bearing fruit, I’ll plant green beans again, and I’ll be adding tomatoes to our garden. I also have plans to plant some herbs in a strawberry planter to put on our side stoop.
Now, I could just go out and buy some tomato and herb plants, but that would defeat the purpose of learning new skills to prepare for homesteading! So I decided that we were going to learn how to start our plants from seed. Thankfully, I have my dad as a wonderful resource! He has already learned the skill of starting seeds indoors. What’s more, he successfully saved his own seeds and is now able to use them in his garden this year. Of course, the library and the internet (ahem) are also great places to find more information on how and WHEN to start seeds in your neck of the woods.
Since this is the first time I’ve ever started seeds indoors, I didn’t mix up my own seed starting soil mix. However, I do plan on trying that next year! Instead, I just bought some Organic Potting Soil.
Starting the seeds really wasn’t too difficult – in fact, my kids did a great job of helping me out! If we can do it, so can you!
Here’s what we used:
- Paper Egg Carton (we used the one from the 5 dozen egg case at walmart)
- Organic Potting Soil
- Heirloom Seeds (You can get them at your local farm supply store)
- Tray
- Water
Our Simple Process:
First, I decided to cut my egg carton so that I had 20 spaces to fill. Then I filled each space with the potting soil.
We only had 5 types of seeds (Cherry Tomatoes, Abe Lincoln Tomatoes, Baby Roma, Rosemary, and Italian Parsley) (affiliate links) to plant. However, just in case some of those seedlings didn’t make it, I decided that we would use 4 spaces per one type of seed. Then within each space, we planted three seeds.
For example: I have a row of 4 egg spaces devoted to Roma Tomatoes (affiliate link). In each space, I decided to place three seeds in case some decided not to germinate.
After the seeds were planted, we put the egg carton on a tray and added water to the tray. This way you don’t wash your seeds away by dumping water on top of the soil. Rather, it gets soaked up from the bottom!
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Now, it has been a couple of weeks since our first planting, and they are growing quite nicely!
We will be starting some more seeds inside once it gets closer to planting time. Check the backs of your seed packets to know when to start your seeds based off of when they can be planted outside. You can check out this website to determine your last frost date, so you can know when it is safe to plant your seedlings.
Happy Planting!
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