I started planting my first seeds two weeks ago, and have been planting more batches every few days as the seed packs indicate. So far it’s going pretty well; about 90% of seeds have germinated and are up and going. I can say this with confidence as I have all of my seeds and this year’s sowings organized in Excel spreadsheets and know exactly how many seeds were planted and when. (I literally had nothing to while the earth was covered in 2′ of snow and waited for my knee to heal this past month.) So I’m possibly better organized with my garden than I’ve ever been with anything, but I know I’ll be grateful for it all when it comes time to plant next year.

Here’s what I’ve planted so far:

Medium: Black Gold seedling mix. All seedlings are planted in 6-pack deep trays or Bootstrap Farmer’s 2″ seed pots. All trays are in 10×20 trays on heating pads with large humidity domes.

2/28/21:

Autumn Colors Rudbeckia	Pinetree Seeds
Dwarf Cactus Dahlia	RH Shumway
Redskin Mix Dahlia	Pinetree Seeds
Lobelia (Crystal Palace)	Botanical Interests
Sugar Stars Phlox	Baker Creek
Rainbow Loveliness	Botanical Interests
Pink Carnations	MI Gardener
Arena Red Lisianthus	Hirt’s Seeds
Listada de Gandia Eggplant	Botanical Interests
Lettuce Leaf Basil	Baker Creek
Holy Basil	Tradewinds Fruit
Pennyroyal	Hirt’s Seeds

Of this batch, the Sugar Stars Phlox and the the Lisianthus did not germinate at all. I recycled the phlox and will prob attempt to resow them at some point later this spring. I’m still waiting on the Lisanthus as I know they take forever to germinate.

(Note: when I say I “recycled” a given variety, I’m just recycling the soil, not the actual seed. Yes, I know sometimes the seeds will pop up later on in random places; it’s all good.)

3/1/21:

Peach Melba Nasturtium	Botanical Interests
Single Blend Trailing Nasturtium	Botanical Interests
Lollipop Mix Gaillardia	Baker Creek
Bull’s Blood Beet	Pinetree Seeds

Of this batch, one lone Trailing Nasturtium germinated and absolutely no other nasturtiums did. I loved growing (and eating) my nasturtiums last year, but I used an Alaska Mix from Ferry Morse (of all companies) and I had to restock. I had no problems with that seed mix, though I noticed that nasturtiums take forever to grow,\ so I knew I needed to start them early. Really sad that these did not germinate. I have the lone trailing nasturtium sitting in my kitchen windowsill and recycled the soil of the rest. The Gaillardia germinated well but I am finding that, once germinated, they are growing really slowly. Or perhaps I’m just impatient. (I ended up eating the beet seedlings; technically they were from a microgreens mix anyway. I’ll plant more outside later.)

3/4/21:

Sugar Snap Pea	Johnny’s Seeds
Salanova® Green Sweet Crisp	Johnny’s Seeds
Salanova® Home Garden Mix	Johnny’s Seeds
Wildfire Mix Lettuce	Johnny’s Seeds
Fenugreek (plant)	Johnny’s Seeds

So, I broke down one night after watching way too many “You Can’t Eat The Grass” videos about how much they looooved Johnny’s Salanova lettuces and bought some to try out. (It was slow going as most of the time I tried to buy something from their website, they were closed to home gardeners as they were just trying to get caught up with actual farmer’s orders.) If you’ve never bought from Johnny’s, prepare to deal with some serious sticker shock. Each pack of the Salanova lettuces was around $6 for 25 seeds (which for lettuce seed is outrageous!) However, the Salanovas, at least, are highly researched and trademarked, and apparently last 3x as long in the fridge, taste better than most lettuces, are highly prized by market farmers, etc. I was very careful with my Salanova seeds and only planted two of each kind–they had better have 100% germination at that cost. And so far, they have. The Wildfire mix was on sale; it germinated well but tasted bitter, so they got recycled. The Fenugreek also germinated well and grew extremely quickly as a microgreen, but I also found their taste to be bitter; I saved one so I could grow it as an herb and recycled the rest.

The Snap Peas are off and running and are already 6″ high. I had a ton of trouble with my peas last year–it was so disappointing, as I love snap peas and they are one of the few things I can grow that don’t trigger any of my food intolerances. But now I’m not sure what to do with snap peas that are actually growing the way they should. At the moment, I’ve pinched them off the way you would a Sweet Pea vine; maybe they’ll bush up the way a Sweet Pea does? Who knows? The tops were tasty, though. (If I’ve learned nothing at all from Charles Dowding, I’ve at least learned that you can grow snap peas just for their shoots.)

3/7/21:

Hyssop, Apache Sunset	Botanical Interests
Pansy, Got the Blues	Botanical Interests
Viola, Johnny-Jump-Up	Botanical Interests
Viola, King Henry	Botanical Interests
Pepper, Biquinho Yellow (hot)	Baker Creek
Pepper, Fish (hot)	Baker Creek
Pepper, Pasilla Bajio Chile Chilaca (hot)	Botanical Interests
Leek, King Richard	Botanical Interests

The pansies, violas, and hyssop have all germinated well and look good. Even my leek seeds have sprouted (I’m trying to get some succession sowing–I have leek starts, and now this batch from seeds.) Also, surprisingly, the Pasilla Bajio pepper popped up already. My (limited) experience with hot peppers is that they take forever to germinate. When I grew Sugar Rush Peach peppers last year, I had healthy seedlings pop up in recycled soil a good two months after I had originally sown them, though my first Sugar Rush peppers only took three weeks or so to germinate, I think. So I’m not worried about the other hot peppers, but I’m a tad worried about the Pasilla Bajio as it’s not going to be warm enough to plant them outside here until at least mid-May. But who knows? Gardening is always a guessing game, imho. I’ve never grown any of these from seed before.

3/8/21:

Sweet Pea, Little Sweetheart	Botanical Interests
Sweet Pea, My Navy	Botanical Interests
Sweet Pea, Royal Blend	Botanical Interests

Note: Sweet Peas (the flowering vine) are grown for their flowers only, as all parts of that plant are toxic if ingested. Just FYI.

So, inspired in part by “The Impatient Gardener” videos, and a bunch of other market flower grower videos, I’ve decided to try my hand at growing Sweet Peas. They look very curly and pretty, and apparently many of them smell heavenly. So why not? I gave the seeds an overnight soak, and so far the “Royal Blend” seeds have all sprouted, with the “My Navy” seeds not far behind. (While it’ll be cool to finally grow any pea successfully, it’s just one more crop that needs a trellis, unfortunately. Sigh.)

3/11/21:

Wormwood	Seed Savers Exchange
African Daisy	Baker Creek
White Marigold	Baker Creek
Moonflower	Seed Savers Exchange
Black Velvet Nasturtium	R H Shumway’s
Dwarf Jewel Mix Nasturtium	Baker Creek
Tip Top Salmon Nasturtium	Baker Creek

These seeds obviously haven’t had a chance to come up yet. I’ve sown a new batch of nasturtiums from different companies in the hopes that these varieties have better germination rates. I have enough seeds to keep resowing them all year if need be. Though I did forget to soak this batch, so that may not help things. Also, moonflower seeds, as I learned after the fact, also need to be soaked or nicked somehow before they are planted, so this batch of moonflowers may not come up at all. But then again, moonflowers are a morning glory, and morning glories want to grow, so who knows?

The wormwood is part of my ongoing plan to create a perennial witchy Victorian-style herb garden, with a wide variety of both culinary and “magical” herbs. Apparently wormwood, like morning glories, want to grow, and will get huge and take over the garden the way a mint or basil would if given a chance. (This seems to be the case with many herbs I’ve seen, actually.) So my herb garden may have to end up being a container garden, like for a Victorian’s solarium, rather than an in-ground English cottage hedge-witch type of garden. Ah, well.

This weekend’s plan is to get the rest of my peppers and all the rest of my nightshades planted. The tomatoes will probably go out to the garden sooner than the peppers; I’ve no idea how the tomatillos will grow, as I’ve never grown tomatillos. I have enough seeds in my collection to keep growing for at least five years, so either way, I’ll get something to grow.