Seed Starting 2011

I looked outside this morning and it almost felt a little like spring. The squirrels were digging in the mud that was my yard and the robins were right behind them. Our robins haven't felt the need to go south this year. I even saw the fox running through our quickly melting snow.

February 1st is my official seed starting date for the upcoming gardening season. My goal this year is to stagger my starts so the garden produces earlier and continues to produce later. Hopefully I will get some cold weather tolerant items set out in the hoop house March 1st. I pulled out the bags of seeds that have been accumulating in the back of the cabinet and realized I may have gone a little overboard. My eyes were definitely bigger than my garden and some will be given away.

With all the restraint I could muster, I only planted the scheduled one meager flat. In there I have the first planting of salad greens, spinach, mustard greens, and swiss chard. Just for fun I started one sungold select orange cherry tomato. It will end up in a pot so I figured I could break it in early. It would be nice to have a tomato in May. I also planted some herbs. The herbs I start from seed generally don't do so well. I used up my last seeds of basil and rosemary. I will probably end up just buying starts for the herbs. Just to complete the flat I used up my last dwarf orange master pomegranate seeds and am trying to get a couple dwarf coffee trees to take off. It's pretty nice to actually be starting plants that will end up outside in the garden.
My one previous orange master pomegranate is growing like a weed. I got these seeds with hopes to turn them into bonsai. Nera managed to bonsai the previous set as soon as they put out leaves. This one was a fighter and came back from a nub.

Other plant-related exciting news. The little key lime is happy and getting ready to bloom. So in a year maybe I will get a couple key limes. Hey in Kansas we take what we can get.

Sam's succulent garden had a battle last fall with squirrels and robins. It took several months but these guys and looking good again. Note for next year, don't leave the juicy looking plants out after everything else turns brown.