Seed Starting

Remember my garden plan from January? It's finally time to start the seeds!

Everything is starting indoors, I like to keep them on the radiator, which acts as a warming pad. The tomatoes and a few flowers will stay inside under the seed starting light, the rest will go back out to the greenhouse once they've sprouted. 

Tomatoes: yellow pear, bloody butcher, martino roma, black krim, early girl, sweet 100's cherry tomato (2), and a beefsteak hybrid.  

Flowers: Chantilly bronze snapdragons (4), rocket hybrid snapdragons (4), twinny appleblossom snapdragons (3), falling in love poppy (2), strawberry fields globe amaranth, celestial morning glory, dill, yellow marigolds, pink lemonade cosmos, cosmic orange and yellow cosmos, blushing black eyed susan vine. Last year I direct-sowed some of these flowers and they did great, but I'm hoping to give them a head start this year on the growing season thanks to the greenhouse. 

When we get closer to May I am also starting mammoth sunflowers in the greenhouse, as well as the purple ones I just bought. Sunflowers are great direct sow flowers - if you can keep the chipmunks from eating the seeds, which I cannot. So I'm starting those in the greenhouse, but much closer to planting because they grow fast and will quickly outgrow their containers. 

There's still quite a bit of snow on the ground, but it should hopefully finish melting this week as we hit temps in the 60s all this week (it's HOT the greenhouse in the afternoon!). If all goes according to a normal seasonal pattern this year (last year it did not), I'll be able to direct sow peas and lettuce in the raised bed garden in early April. I'll also pot up my dahlia bulbs in a few weeks in the greenhouse, and as soon as my ranunculus and anemone corms arrive too. It's so nice to have my hands in the dirt again!