Thanks to my inability to actually decide what to plant, my wavering choices as to where to buy, and plain laziness, I waited until last week to order the seeds that I need to start in the house. Last year I was all gung-ho, sick of the second awful winter in a row and started them too early. By early April I was dealing with having half grown plants in the house and cold frame until it was warm enough to plant out tomatoes and peppers. They spent way too much time in the cold frame and under the lamps, but this year I am ready.
I'm starting them now, instead of mid February, so they should only need a week or so in the cold frame, and my friend Bebe has kindly given me some "Wall of Water" cloches to put on them if it stays too cool. With the warm winter we've had so far, I doubt we'll have a long cool spring, although I am often wrong. There is no second guessing Mother Nature.
Actually, instead of the single Aerogarden in the picture, I have two, and but still have to unearth the second one from the depths of the basement. I am just going to use the plant lights and skip growing the seedlings hydroponically. They did well last year, but moving them to dirt created far too much transplant shock. This year they're going to start their lives in seed medium. While it's not actually soil, the roots don't shock so much when transplanted. The hydroponic systems are fine if they're going to stay in the unit and grow indoors, but for transplanting, um, no. Need to bring up more seed trays, too.
Should have it all planted by tomorrow or Sunday at the latest. It's going to get to be near 70°F here tomorrow and I may move to a patio table for filling the trays with planting medium as it'll save a lot of indoor clean up if I let the March wind blow away the mess.
My big bag of starting medium, my seed trays and the lights are ready. I have bushel baskets of tomatoes on my mind. Soon.
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