City Girl Seeds Start – My Container Garden

I’m so excited.  This morning was the day that evidence of my started seeds poked through the peat to face the light.  This means the organic “fruits” of my toil in starting my container garden has literally begun to take shape! For you old-hands at this gardening thing, seeing the first seedling sprouts may seem like no big deal, but for this city girl it just made my day start off better than a cuppa’joe.

First, let me show you what I have been doing!

After doing some preliminary research on the Internet I found some advice on starting my seeds cheaply.  I then raided my garage for the needed materials.  Here is what I came up with:

The picture came out a bit dark , but if you look close you can see what I found many use for cheaply starting seeds.  Here I put together one sawhorse (I think one side is called a sawhorse), and hung a shoplight on it.  The chain and some books will help me adjust the distance in which the plants will be from the lights.   For the shoplight people have recommended getting two different florescent bulbs, one cold and one warm to balance the light best for seedlings.  Here I used two GE Sunshine 40 florescent bulbs.  After some research I decided to go with these more “full spectrum” (color temp 5000) bulbs. Some sites say they will work better then using the two different bulbs.  Hey, home depot had them so I flipped a coin and got these.  Below the lamp you see two of those nifty greenhouse container kits.  The one to the left is the peat pellet one I used to start my container garden seeds with.  I will be using the second one with regular potting soil for the larger veggie garden seeds I will be ordering and starting right soon.

Starting the seeds in Peat

Here I am doing what people with gardens have done for forever-and-a-day: starting seeds.  My container garden will hopefully give fruit to many items that I will be using in the kitchen.  I started these seeds without much thought to size or beauty, so this years garden will probably not come out winning any awards for beauty or organization.  I tried to makeup for this a little with the idea of planting them in a lot of different containers instead of a couple large containers.  We shall see if that works out.

The peat pellets were easy. I just followed the instructions: soaked the little buggers, pulled away the netting they came in, pursed and moved the peat a little at the tops, and then planted anywhere from 3 to 5 seeds as the thought moved me.   I used simple toothpicks, masking tape, and a permanent marker to make the labels.  Here are my seeds all in place and labeled.  Being new at this I am guessing I planted too many, but I don’t mind that if it means that I will have better chances of getting living plants in those containers.

Cool huh?

What’s Dharma Hoping to Grow in her Container Garden?

To start my list of seeds planted so far is:

• Sage
• Oregano
• Coriander
• Calendula
• Thai Basil
• Basil Ararat
• Jalapeño Pepper
• Demon Thai Pepper
• Sweet Cherry Pepper
• Chives
• Garlic Chives

Now, I know my timing is probably not exactly right on starting some of these seeds, but thankfully there are more seeds in the packets if all fails first time around.

Signs of Life?  Oh Yeah!

Isn’t she pretty?