In The Garden - February 26

Even though the ground around here is covered with about three inches of snow, I started planting my garden today!  It's time to begin planting all the cold-tolerant yummy things like spinach, chard, lettuce and kohlrabi.

The planting process is pretty simple.  I plant the seeds in small pots where they'll stay until they have their first set of true leaves.  Then, I'll move them into bigger pots where they'll live until they go into the garden proper.  In practice though, the process takes quite a while as everything needs to be completely clean and sanitized to prevent the damping-off fungus that can kill little seedlings.  So, I spent about an hour scrubbing old pots with a brush and then soaking them in a bleach solution to kill any lurking fungus.

After labeling each pot, I filled it with dampened seed-starting mix (contains no fertilizers) and planted the seeds at their preferred depth.  I put each pot into a clear plastic bag to keep the moisture at a constant level and moved them down to the basement to live on a heat mat, under the plant lights.

This batch of seedlings will be able to move out into the garden in early April.  I'll start additional spinach, lettuce and kohlrabi in about a month so that I have a long harvest of those yummy vegetables.  (Truth is, I'm afraid that I'm going to starve to death before I can begin harvesting that spinach again.  I simply can't afford to buy as much spinach as I would like to eat!)

I'll start the more tender plants such as herbs, zinnias, and morning glory in a few weeks.  I haven't grown my own tomato and pepper plants in many years as I have been soooo pleased with the plants that I get at Lambert Floral.  I usually make my first spring pilgrimage there in early April for the tomatoes that I'm also waiting hungrily for.