Sowing Seeds.

One of the things we wanted to try this planting season in 2014 was starting seeds indoors ourselves instead of having to buy plants at $4/each from a Home Depot, Wal-ly World, etc. So we have spent a vast amount of time planning our seed lists, studying planting times for those certain crops, deciphering whether or not to start them indoors vs. planting the seeds directly in the garden later during the season, etc. And then we started the "Seed Hunt" back in December and January. And then in February we went shopping... for the things needed for indoor seeding without a greenhouse (greenhouse is on our future wish list)... After tons of internet searching, we wound up driving up to Atlanta to get the essentials... heat mats, grow lights, seed starting soil, cell flats, plastic domes, etc. The list goes on and on. And then the fun in our indoor seeding quest began in mid-February...

Hubby showing off one of our grow lights.

Organizing the seed packets and setting up label sticks.

Logging in everything planted by date and plant type.

Hubby constructing frames to hold up the grow lights over the seed flats.

First cell flat planted! Dill and 4 types of tomatoes!

Master Carpenter working his magic!

Test run is working great!

First four cell flats under the light!

Checking the temperature often... gotta keep watch.

9 days later... peppers are doing great!

21 days later... Gotta do some transplanting and thinning out!

March 2nd... planted even more seeds! More tomatoes and peppers plus radishes.

9 days later... Getting so big that have to transplant into 3 inch cups for some of them!

Radishes are looking good!

Moving them into large cups.

What it looks like today... Added in 4 types of cucumbers, 2 types of squash, zucchini, more peppers.

And already overdue for more transplanting and thinning! Still several weeks to go before planting them outdoors too.

Seed Hunt 2014.

So I have been making our seed list and checking it twice since the Christmas holidays. So many magazines and catalogs from different seed companies have arrived in the mail... It is so hard to choose what to buy since there are so many choices! I finally made my first order through the one company we purchased from last year. And it was like Christmas all over when the boxes arrived earlier in January.

Of course, one thing we have learned is that most of the big seed companies do not sell the more "southern" veggie seeds... those will have to be purchased locally. And since our local feed-n-seed store closed back in October, we are on the hunt for local stuff.

Fortunately, we were introduced to a feed store about 12 miles south of our farm that focuses a lot on chicken stuff, but also carries seeds.... so I managed to score a few seed types from them a week or so ago. We still need a few more, but we have our early seeds to plant indoors for now. The others will be direct seeded later in the Spring so we have some time to find them.

Just Arrived!

Guess what showed up in the US Mail yesterday? Part of our upcoming project! Cannot wait to break ground tomorrow!! Stay tuned...

Rain Is A Good Thing

Quick check on the garden Monday afternoon while meeting a fence installer to discuss our perimeter fence options around the plot. We got another two inches of rain on Sunday and from the looks of my three rows of peas, they are happy, happy, happy! (See the staked rows in the photo) Way too muddy to do anything... but, I did score some pumpkin seeds over the weekend and okra seeds at the local feed store yesterday. Just hope I can get them in the ground the next couple of days!