The Weather Won.

The weather has pushed me back indoors with snow and cool temperatures. Everything is still cosy in the cold frame and I try not to open it much to keep heat in. Indoors I have jalapeño and green peppers, ground cherries, asparagus, celery, onions, leeks, red onions, shallots, alpine strawberries, some greens, trailing and single petunias, hollyhocks and pansies all germinated. I plant so many flowers from seed for gifts during the spring/summer months. I have even given away potted ground cherries, tomatoes and peppers as gifts. You never know who's going to move into a new home, have a birthday, invite you to dinner or just require a simple gift for some reason. Petunias are well loved and the trailing varieties will spill over the edges of the ugliest pot making a lovely gift. Petunias will last all summer and well into the fall with a little care. In the fall I have started saving seeds from my garden for winter and early spring gifts. I snuck a few in with some of my X-mas gifts. I could hardly believe how many seeds you could harvest from flowers. I will have marigold seeds for life now. I somehow managed to misplace a mason jar full of petunia seeds I had collected. I will probably locate it after it is too late to start any more. 

From left to right I have jalapeños, ground cherries, green peppers, asparagus, celery and petunias in the peat pellets. Although I have had success starting petunias in soil, I have had better success with peat pellets for these tiny seeds.  

I had sown quite a few celery seeds since I did not have the most fantastic germination success rate last year. This year the celery seedlings are doing great and the majority of seeds germinated. None have bolted yet, which they will do if they get too cold. 

In my experimentation with more environmentally friendly potting for seedlings, I tried out the eggshell in egg carton method. So far so good. I used this for greens I started for transplanting out in early spring. I planted arugula, black seeded simpson lettuce and romaine lettuce. I would only use this method for small greens and things that are not going to be staying in the eggshell cups for long. The eggshell cups are too shallow, these greens have almost outgrown them already. The cardboard stays too moist which encourages damping off, which is already problem-some enough when starting seeds indoors. I use a fan to circulate air around the seedlings, however the eggshells trap moisture between the shell and the cardboard, which could potentially be a recipe for disaster. I will still try this method for broccoli and brussel sprouts that I will be starting a short time before planting out, when there is more room on my seed starting shelves for air to circulate. It is a bit of a tricky situation trying to find an eco-friendly solution that does not encourage damping off. 

Blue rambling petunia. 

Pink wave petunias.