Say hello to my little sprouts

After a few weeks of anxiously checking my vegetable seeds every day and seeing nothing but wet dirt... I finally got sprouts!

Check out my tomato sprouts, 3 weeks after sowing indoors:

This is my first year trying to have a vegetable garden, and it's also my first time growing from seed. I was fully prepared for not a single seed to sprout. Looking at the tiny dots inside the paper envelope I bought for $3, it was hard to believe they would grow at all. But one morning I woke up, checked the seed tray for the millionth time, and saw the first sign of life!!

I took a picture and went to my desk to start work for the day. When I came back just a few hours later during lunch, the little guy had finished waking up and was starting to stretch :)

The first rosemary sprout came up a couple days after that. Rosemary is supposedly very hard to germinate, so I was extra surprised to see something finally come up after five weeks. You can see a tiny green sprout at the bottom of the picture below. Up and to the right from that, there's an even smaller sprout that's just starting to uncurl.

Other things I've started indoors and am still waiting to come up are sweet basil and thai hot peppers. The peppers take a while to germinate, and the basil I only just planted last week. I'm also going to plant some lavender this weekend. The lavender seeds have been in the fridge wrapped in a damp paper towel for four weeks now. This is called "cold stratification" and is supposed to simulate winter for the seeds, so that when you actually plant them they think the last frost has passed and it's same to germinate.

Some details about how I started these seeds:

I got a 72-cell seed starting kit (includes a water tray and greenhouse lid), some seed starting mix (apparently different from regular dirt -- sterile, and with less nutrients), and a bunch of seed packets.

It's kind of overwhelming at first figuring out how and when to plant each type of seed. Thankfully the seed packets have instructions on the back. The instructions tell you if the plant is better to start indoors or to wait and directly sow it in the ground outside. For instance, carrots don't like having their roots disturbed, and do best when sown directly outside.

The point of starting indoors to effectively lengthen your growing season. While it's frosty outside, you can be nurturing seedlings inside until it's warm enough to go out. I live in Masachusetts, where it sometimes snows in March, and lots of popular vegetable plants aren't hardy enough to survive a random dip below freezing. 

The seed packet instructions tell you when to plant based on your "last frost date." This varies by location, and is the date after which you will likely (but not guaranteed) no longer be hitting below-freezing temperatures at any time. You can google what it is based on your location. Mine is in April. The instructions will say, "start indoors X weeks before last frost date" and "transplant outside when temperatures regularly hit Y degrees, approximately Z weeks after last frost date", or something like that.

So, based on these instructions, I planted my seeds over the past month. I drew a calendar for myself with the dates to plant different things, when to expect sprouts to emerge, when to transplant, and when to direct sow. Some vegetables you will harvest and replant multiple times throughout a season (carrots and arugula), and others, like tomatoes, will produce all season long once matured. I put the seed tray on a west-facing window that gets strong, hot, and direct afternoon sun.

When I started, I had a tiny (like 2 oz) spray bottle that I was using to moisten the soil because I had nothing else. It would take me ages just to empty out 2 oz of water with tons of tiny little sprays. You're not supposed to pour water directly over seedlings, thus the spray bottle.

I later got a normal sized spray bottle and used that. This was way better, but the soil was still drying out quickly in the hot afternoon sun, even with the greenhouse lid on. Seeds are supposed to stay moist, or else they won't know it's time to germinate.

Finally I figured out the best way to keep the soil moist. It's actually the same method I use for my venus fly trap to keep it in "swampy" conditions similar to its native environment. The bottom of the seed tray has a water tray to catch any excess water. You can also use this tray to "bottom water" the dirt. The bottom of the tray has little irrigation channels, and you fill them up with water. Dry soil sucks the water all the way up to the surface via capillary action. All you have to do is refill the tray once in a while, and the soil essentially waters itself. The leftover water sits around in the tray, which is bad for most plants because it can lead to root rot. But seeds don't have roots yet, and seedling roots aren't big enough to reach the tray, so it works out great.

As I mentioned in the last post, I've been bringing my cat outside for hour long lunch breaks on days with good weather, and there have been a lot of them lately! We bought the house in January, when the ground was covered in snow and the trees all looked dead. Now that it's warming up, new signs of life are popping up in the front yard like surprise housewarming presents.

I don't know much about plants, so I'm excited to find out what these grow up to be! They're planted all along the front of the front yard next to our fence and the sidewalk. 

There's also a small dead-looking tree/bush in the front. It's about the same height as me and looks like a branching stick someone stuck in the ground. The other day I saw that it was starting to bud!

And, in what looked like a barren patch of dirt near the driveway:

There's also been a mound of dirt in the front from my failed bucket compost experiment. I finally decided to fill the hole back up so the ground would look level again. Turns out that even though they were completely covered in dirt, there were perennials under there growing!

I'm so surprised at how much they've already grown (look at all those leaves!!) despite being covered in dirt all this time.

Finally, there are some small twiggy dead-looking bushes scattered around as well, so I'm excited to see if those wake up for spring. Honestly it didn't occur to me that the previous owners had put nice plants in the yard that would come back to life in the spring. It's silly but I was ready to just have this dead tree-looking thing in the front yard year round. Spring does such a good job of lifting you up and showing you hope :)

Seeing everything come to life inspired me to grow more things! I'm currently trying to germinate some avocado and date pits. You're supposed to wrap them in a damp paper towel, put in an unsealed plastic bag (to trap moisture), and let sit somewhere warm and dark for a few weeks. Avocado pits can take several weeks to grow roots and will frequently not grow at all, but I'm feeling optimistic now. Due to the climate here, they are fated to be indoor non-fruiting house plants, but still have the potential to grow big and look nice.

Stay tuned for more plant updates! 🌱