“Easy” start

For the past couple of days every morning after I woke up, I went straight to our living room window to open up the curtains and let the sun in. No, I’m not THAT into welcoming spring, especially not before that first cup of coffee first. I was checking on how my planted seeds were doing and I was letting the sun in for them to enjoy it.

I’ve planted most of my tomato seeds and some peppers last Saturday - eight weeks before last frost day (May 6th for Ottawa, according to Google). And starting yesterday, I’ve been watching most of the little guys picking through the soil, standing up and making me very happy!:)
But don't be fooled by my over-enthusiastic state. It took some work for this to happen:
1. Shelve
Prior to planting, I’ve asked V to built some sort of a shelve to hold the plants near our biggest, sunniest window. Some grudging on his part later, the shelve was made:) The plywood leftovers from our floor project (still going, as you can see the carpet in the living room hasn't been replaced yet) had found their purpose. The shelve is the width of the window and it has two levels that at first I thought would be too much, but once I actually placed the planted trays onto the shelve, it really wasn’t that big at all. Best part – it can be easily disassembled and put away until next year. Oh, the shelve was supposed to be supported in the middle, so it doesn't bend, but I placed the seedlings so quickly on it, V hadn't had a chance to do it yet.

2. Containers
As for the seedling containers, I mostly used egg cartons, and, as an experiment, I got some single-use aluminum baking trays/forms that were on sale at nearby grocery store. From what I can tell, they are quite awesome – some I used as trays to hold egg cartons and others - I planted seeds directly into. Some even came with plastic lids, that I’ve poked holes in and used to cover the seedlings for the night. To cover egg cartons, I used plastic bags, they worked ok, the only thing is they get wet really quickly and soak already wet egg cartons even more.
When the time comes to pot up the seedlings, I have lots of yogurt/take out containers that I’ve been collecting at work throughout the winter. I really want each plant to have its own place and space:)

3. Seeds and soil
All the seeds came form this little event that I went to earlier this month - always happy to support local farmers and gardening enthusiasts. Potting soil and soil-less mix were purchased at Home Depot. For some seeds, I’ve used a combination of two rather than using just the soil-less mix and it worked.

So that’s my seed story, hope I encouraged some of you to do the same or create your own version and spread it around. It’s a LOT of work, but it’s fun work with very tasty results:)