Turkey Tracks: Starting Our Seeds

Turkey Tracks:  March 27, 2011

Starting Our Seeds

Our vegetable seeds arrived about a week ago!

We collected potting soil one day last week.  Then, we waited for an opportune day (a warm day) to set up the sun porch on the third floor (southeast facing, lovely light) (finding where on earth we put the card table and the small white table).  The potting soil came as a peat block which had to be mixed with water in the wheelbarrow.  It’s the same mixture our favorite local nursery uses.  (Last year I used a compost-based soil that did not grow a thing.)  Water means either hauling water from the outside faucetswhich are  up a set of steps or dragging out hoses put away for the winter.  John, god love him, dragged out the hoses and hooked one up, which made our work much easier.  And, he turned the mixture while I sprayed the water.  AND, he carried the flats of dirt-filled pots up two flights of stairs to the sun porch.  In the middle of the effort we decided we had room for more pots, so we made a trip to our local hardware store for three more flats and 54 peat pots.

Here’s John during the front end of this operation.  It was sunny, yes, but there was a cold wind off and on.   

Here John is putting tiny, tiny seeds into our pots.   (The celery seeds were 1/4 the size of a poppy seed!  Look at those fabulous windows.  It was warm enough in this room that we had to shed sweaters.

We planted lOTS of leeks, Brussel sprouts, cabbage, broccoli, Sun Gold tomatoes,  a mid-season tomato, and some celery.  Margaret dried a little cherry tomato last fall and gave me a quart Mason jar of them for my birthday.  They are as sweet as candy and so welcome now when our taste buds are looking for greens and tangy tasting things.  We’ll be cutting broccoli right up to really cold weather in December. 

We’re going to seed more leeks directly into the ground, along with onions and peas, as soon as we can work the soil–hopefully in April.