I began this garden in the middle of winter. I live in Colorado which is zone 5. When you live in a place that has such a cold winter you have to do something to get you through to spring. I always get spring fever the minute Christmas is over. What can one do other than dream about spring. I started with finding a place to order seeds from. I wanted non-GMO seeds so I did a bit of research and found Baker Creek seeds. When looking for companies that offer non-GMO seeds, look to see if they take the Safe Seed Pledge. I immediately ordered a free catalog from Baker Creek seeds. Even though I could've ordered my seeds and read their descriptions online, I opted for the catalog. There is something authentic about flipping each page slowly, dog earing specific pages and circling wish list items. I love this company because they had such an amazing seed variety. I placed my order online and so it all began.....
I did a good deal of planning using the Farmers Almanac website. They have great zip code specific information about when to start certain seeds indoors. My parents had a grow light station that they weren't using so I brought down to the basement and set up my own garden in the middle of winter. I'm quite the rebel I know.
I did a good deal of planning using the Farmers Almanac website. They have great zip code specific information about when to start certain seeds indoors. My parents had a grow light station that they weren't using so I brought down to the basement and set up my own garden in the middle of winter. I'm quite the rebel I know.
Personally I prefer to use the little pellets for seeds. It seems a little bit easier to see exactly where the seeds are. It's also easier to transplant the pellet to a larger pot when it's time. In February, I started my spring veggies indoors. I planted cabbage, dwarf pak choy, leeks, celery, eggplant, parsley,chives, onions and shallots. Everything grew pretty well under the grow lights. I would leave the lights on for about 12-15 hours per day. I had a little trouble getting the eggplant to germinate because my basement is a little chilly and eggplant seeds prefer warmth so I moved them upstairs to my south facing kitchen window sill and that's when they really started to grow. It was fun to go downstairs in the morning and turn on the grow lights and see just how much growth there was . When the seedlings are young, I water with a pitcher and let the soil soak up the water to the plants to avoid damaging them. My leeks must've gotten too damp and I saw some fuzzy white mold growth on them. You can lose your entire tray to this stuff so I immediately made some chamomile tea and watered it down and sprayed the leeks with it every couple days for about 2 weeks. The leeks recovered fully and no sign of mold!
In March, I started my next round of seedlings. I planted several varieties of lettuce, kale, peppers, spinach, swiss chard and tomatoes. The tomatoes and peppers grew slowly under the grow light. They did much better once they were able to come upstairs where it was warmer. I learned that peppers really despise being chilly and get very grumpy and go on a growth strike. Everything else happily grew in the basement. As snow is falling on the ground, I have little green plants thriving inside. I water my plants in the morning. As my mama always said " They don't like to go to bed wet." That really does hold true. Plants are more susceptible to mold and disease if they are wet for too long. If you water in the morning while the lights are on they will have time dry completely before it's dark.
All of the spring veggies that can tolerate light frost will be going outside in April which means they're going to need a home. My next post will be about how we planned the garden and what we used to build raised beds.