Starting from seed...by (Angela) Jean

I have just finished planting my third vegetable garden.

During my 12 years of apartment living, I longed for outdoor space, so I knew that when we bought a house, a vegetable garden would be a 'must-have'.
The first year we planted our garden I was 9 months pregnant so I was more of a supervisor than a planter. My Mom and Dad came down for the day and Shawn and my Dad did most of the grunt work.

Garden-Year #1

The second year I was on maternity leave, so the kids and I haunted all our local garden centres, bought loads of seedlings and once again, my Mom and Dad came down to help plant.

Garden-Year #2

This year I thought it might be fun to start some plants from seed.

I was a little over-eager and I started my first batch of seedlings on Feb 21.

 

Way. Too. Early.

I knew it was early, but I was very excited and I just wanted to see what would happen.


I didn't have any special equipment or anything. No fancy grow lights, or heating pads. Just some plastic trays, a watering can, and some seeds.
 
The best light in our house is in the kitchen so that's where we kept the seed trays, until.....well.....someone got a little too interested. 

  

We started over again and this time we moved the grow-op to the master bedroom upstairs.

tomato seedlings 17 days old

The cayenne peppers were the only seedlings from the February 21 planting that made it into the garden.

Garden-Year #3

I widened the garden this year, and added a path down the centre to help with picking and weeding. My parents came down for planting day, and now, after 3 years, I think we can safely say it's become a tradition!

Eggplant seedlings

  I've never grown eggplant before so I look forward to seeing what happens.

 I supplemented my home-grown seedlings with a few plants from the garden centre: brussels sprouts, swiss chard, spinach, chives and about 7 or 8 different herbs.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with how my seedlings turned out. I won't try herbs again next year. They didn't grow well for me at all. I had great success with cucumbers last year, so this year I planted 4 different varieties. After starting them in trays, way too early, I sacrificed them to the compost and started again, this time sowing them directly in the ground.
Amelia had a great time helping with the seedlings, and she and Otis love walking up and down the new garden path.
I promise to post an update later in the season.