Skip to main content

Terrariums and Seed Starting

After reading a bit in my trusty Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardner's Handbook:  Make the Most of Your Growing Season by Ron and Jennifer Kujawski book, my husband and I quickly realized we were a bit behind in our seed starting.

First, let me say a couple of things regarding seed starting.

1.  It's apparently complicated
2.  I've failed at it miserably in the past

Luckily enough, I had signed up for a terrarium making class at a local nursery, Tagawa Gardens, and they were having a "Seed Starting Day" that same day.  Yay killing two birds with one stone!

I went to my terrarium class, it was lovely.  Just the right amount of information, terrarium history, and hands on fun.  For $18.23 I was able to buy all the supplies for this little guy, all I had to do was bring the jar, which was left over from my wedding.  Score.

I loved the moss, I guess having grown up in a relatively dry environment has made me fall helplessly in love with all things super green and humidity-needing.  So it's nice to capture at least a little bit of that in my home. 

After terrarium class was over, I got down to business buying seeds.  This place was ginormous, but I resisted the temptation to browse and focused on seed acquisition.


We decided on trying the following vegetables from seed (variety name):
  • Chives (eek, already threw out package)
  • Basil (ditto, package gone)
  • Parsnip (All American) 
  • Carrots (Half Danver)
  • Kale (Nero Toscana)
  • Spinach (Bloomsdale)
  • Lettuce (Buttercrunch)
  • Zucchini (Black Beauty)
  • Cucumber (Straight Eight)
  • Sugar Pumpkin (New England Pie)
  • Watermelon (Sugar Baby, wishful thinking for hubby)
  • Spaghetti Squash (Vegetable Spaghetti)
  • Pea (Oregon Sugar Pod)
  • Fenugreek sprouts (another story entirely) 

We, and by we, I mean my grandpa, told me to start certain veggies from plants.  Our transplant selection includes (varieties TBD):
  • Starter Onion
  • Starter Garlic
  • Asparagus
  • Broccoli
  • Cauliflower
  • Tomatoes
  • Peppers
  • Rhubarb
So last night, we started a few seeds: Basil, Chives, Carrots, and Parsnips.  In coming weeks we will plant Spinach, Kale, and Lettuce.

After agonizing over a seed growing set up, my loving husband jerry-rigged the following for us.

Shelving we had:





Then he hooked up a bad ass light:


Then we got to planting:





Above would be carrots, way too many itty-bitty carrots seeds.

And blow is a close up of our finished product:



My only concern at this point is heat.  You can buy all sorts of fancy heating mats for your seedlings, but I'm hoping having them in our main living area, which we keep at 70 degrees, will keep everyone snug as bugs in rugs. 

Wondering about the cost breakdown?  Well, it was more than I would have liked, but we realize this is a starting investment and hopefully it will pay off in the end ::fingers crossed::

Metal Shelf: Had in the basement
Plastic starter trays x4: $15.88
Seed starting soil: $12.99
Seeds mentioned above (all organic and/or heirloom varieties): $15.47
Florescent light fixture: $19.97
Florescent bulbs (4 pack): $16.00

Total:  $80.31

We hope to add another light fixture in the near future for our upcoming seeds on shelf two.

And now - we wait.














Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

My Little Review of Smart Gardener

My good friend introduced me to Smart Gardener via Pinterest .  The description was something along the lines of, "this site plans your garden for you."  As a new gardener, I was skeptical.  Sounds a little too good to be true, but I checked it out anyways. At first I was enamored.  It allows for garden planning in 4 steps: 1.  Layout your garden - you are able to choose the square footage of an in-ground garden, or choose from a variety of containers/raised beds.  Cool! 2. Select your plants - this is limited by season, and you cannot mix cool weather and warm weather vegetables.  Not cool!  Varieties of vegetables are also limited if you are looking for something specific, but you can add them manually. 3. View your plan - you get a little image with your selected plants on it, plus the space they require in your garden (square footage), planting depths, seed spacing, plant dimensions, and what to plant next to each other or not (F...
2 comments
Read more

"New" Tomato Cages

One day (in 2014) I stumbled upon a post in the LA Times about tomato cages (article from 2012).  There seems to be a lot of theories out there about how to grow tomatoes (up, on the ground, upside down?), and I knew our homemade cages last year where just painfully too short for how large those plants became.  I really liked this cage configuration from the Times - it seemed simple enough and cost friendly enough.  I initially checked out some of the basic cages at the nursery and were surprised how expensive they were.  I went to Home Depot and was able to find fun colored ones for roughly $6 each.  My wonderful mom purchased 10 for me, paired by color.  They are nice enough that they can be reused year from year, and they stack well - not taking up too much room in an already too full garage.  I was able to buy a pack of 6 bamboo poles for $3.  So 5 permanent cages for $35-40.  Perfect. Setting up the cages was relatively painl...
Post a Comment
Read more

Why Hello Chives and Strawberries

As of Saturday, we'll have been in our new home three months.  Currently in our new yard, we have a somewhat hideous attempt at a garden.  I'm not sure exactly when this first picture was taken, this was a pic from the original listing.  The split-rail fence has gots to go.  If you take a closer look, you can see that there appears to be a random mishmash of plants in here.  Looks like there is a rosebush (two actually), some green thing (sage bush), and my husband discovered chives and strawberries. Huh.  We've struggled on deciding what to do with this space.  I'm not sure I want my garden around an A/C unit and so far this "garden" is just a hot mess of weeds, rocks, and random plants.  Our current plan is to scrap everything except the strawberries.  I hope to make enough room in the next week or so to put a cucumber and zucchini in the ground, but time is running out.  I also want to enclose the strawberries an...
1 comment
Read more