Wednesday, March 6, 2013

It is done

On Sunday, we finally did it. We got all our seeds that are going to be started inside started. I thought I had it done Saturday, when Pooka and I finished starting all our herbs.

Pooka and I had picked up these peat pots at the grocery store for $1 each. I hate paying full price for things if I can avoid it. The sad thing is, they didn't come with any seed starting pellets or dirt. So we had to make a small trip out to get seed starting dirt. However, I could only find this size bag, which was a bit bigger then we wanted.
Seed starting supplies
Each pot got some dirt, some seeds and a popsicle stick marker. I had some extra colored ones left over from last year, and we had just enough to use all the peat pots for herbs.

The Dill ended up going into the extra tins with the parsley from the Growums. I figured it was already in use, might as well get my money out of it.  With that, I started to water all the peat pots and realized I forgot something to put them on since the pots would leak a bit of water being made of peat and all. So out came some of our cheap plastic serving trays for bread or family gatherings. But I didn't feel like having my serving dishes tied up long term.

Planted seeds, with no way to hold water.
We went out Sunday to get some cheap aluminum roasting pans. These will be put in the garden drawer once we are done and we can save them for next year (with the muffin tins). Although I was silly and got the roasting pans with lids. Oops... At least the lids are still useable for holding the pots as well.

If you can't tell, apparently last weekend my brain took a vacation and left me here. I was not thinking things through very well. Which is why it was no surprise Sunday when I went to put the herbs in their new roasting pans that I realized that I forgot to plant the snapdragons.
Forgotten Snapdragons

Now I was really kicking myself since snapdragons are one of the 3 flowers I will grow, and with the 100 days till bloom, they take awhile. So here it is, Sunday, no more peat pots, plenty of seed starting dirt, and seeds. I could of gone back into town out for containers, but frankly, I was being lazy.

A red cup with a hole

However, this tower of plastic cups was sitting there. They were about the same size as the peat pots, but they wouldn't do much for drainage. Enter a nail that we popped through the bottom. However, I realized that the dirt would fall through the bottom, but we had the coffee filters sitting right there, and a Pooka got to cut them in half. It was the perfect Pooka job. The cut coffee filters are perfect in our cups and let water drain, but don't let the soil out.

Half a coffee filter later
Long story short (too late, I know), it is done. We now had a bunch of cups full of snap dragon seeds. However, it had the same "Water can get everywhere" issue as the peat pots.

Finished Snapdragons
Fortunatly, the roasting pan and lid had a bit of extra space. Now all our seeds we plan on starting (while it is still snowing) are in dirt, many have already sprouted and in some cases have been transplanted. Now to sit back and relax, or not since that pea plant is getting too big to not have a pot. But that was a project for a different day (or at least a different post).

Herbs and snapdragons all ready to go.

 


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