It’s snowing outside.  I am planting anyway!

I have been putting off starting this process of getting seedlings started.  Today is ‘Anti Dilly Dally Day’ and I asked myself what have I been dilly dallying around with?  Planting the seeds.  Let’s get started.

We continue to have cold weather here in Northeast South Dakota making me antsy for gardening.  In fact it is snowing and blowing as I write this blog.  I keep asking myself, “Will this week be the last week of snow?”  I want to plant and yet I don’t.  I have never been very successful at starting seedlings.  Either I started them too early or they didn’t get enough light and dampened off.  This year I am starting later and I now have a small 4 Tier Garden Greenhouse and 2 grow lights I can hang inside.  I have rain water collected in gallon jugs as well.  What could go wrong?  I hope nothing.  Let’s begin.

The other day, I was in town and although I have kept seeds from last years flowers, there are a few new ones I want to try.  I also picked up some seeds for the cold weather vegetables to start.  I am going to do the work on my island in the kitchen and then move it to the 4 tier greenhouse.  But first, I am going to attach the second grow light to it.

I started writing this blog yesterday.  Then Hostgator just got in touch with me as I am going to be transferring over to them and self host Marilyn’s Way.  Got to break and find information from GoDaddy.  This is the part I don’t like.  Yes, I just spent 4 hours with Google and Hostgator and GoDaddy.  I hope we got it to work.  I just want to write.

It was almost 8 pm last night before I got back to planting the seeds in the pellets.  I did get the light hung, the pellets into the mini greenhouses and poured the rain water on them to get them to rise earlier. I found an old mini blind I am going to use for labels.  Will make the labels first and then put the seeds in.  So far I have 2 – 15ers or 30 minutes into this. Time to quit for the night and get my other daily habits done.  The following are photos of what I did get done.  The rest will have to wait until tomorrow.

What I bought and the light I got from Mom’s the other day.  Hanging light up in greenhouse.

Starting out with refilling the pellets for this season into my heated mini greenhouses.

Using an old mini blind for labels.

Pouring warm rain water in the trays for the pellets to activate.

Clipped off the end of the 4 O’clock seed.

And soaking for a couple of hours to help it germinate faster.

Not many seeds in this packet and they are tiny.

Pellets activated and planted the seeds for the first heated mini greenhouse.

 Today is a new day and it is snowing and blowing outside.  I have a tuna gluten free noodle hotdish in the oven perfect comfort food for this kind of day.  The second heated mini greenhouse will be all zinnias.  They are so colorful and the bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds love them.  I am hoping to get a new camera this season to share my gardens with you all.

Zinnias from last season going to plant entire mini greenhouse and put in the 4 tiered greenhouse under the light.

I have got 1 – 15er into planting and one into making the tuna casserole.  I cleaned out the leaves and pine needles of 2 of my starter soil containers, poured it into my tub breaking it up, and then adding new seed starter soil.  I will be putting these in pots.

Time to eat.  Lily and Fred my two dogs smell something in the oven and are signaling that it is done.  I will have a garden salad with it, take a break and then start up again.  I have lots of seeds.  Oh how I hope I am successful with the seedlings this season.  They say the third time is the charm and this is the third year.

Tuna noodle casserole going into the oven.

Here is where my two mini greenhouses are.

I took the old seed starting soil and mixed it with the new in my blue tub.

It will go into here where I will plant some more.

My tuna casserole is done and ready to eat.

NOTE:  Would you believe when I went and took the first bite I wondered where the tuna was?  That is because I forgot to put it in there!  Once again multi tasking doesn’t pay off.  I still ate it.  I got the tuna and put it on top of the noodles!  Time for a much needed 30 minute break.

Okay, so I took a 15er break.  I want to get the blog done before ‘Anti Dilly Dally Day’ is over.  I gathered some seeds and laid newspaper on my kitchen island.  I decided to layer the containers with regular garden soil on the bottom with the starter soil on top.  The following are photos of the steps I took.

Put regular soil for first layer.

Potting mix for second layer

Going to plant these bulbs to get them started.

Liatris and Yellow Peppers.

Layered soils again.

Planted some seeds.

Their new home until they can be moved outside.  Wish me luck!

Hope you enjoyed watching the steps to get some seeds going.  I hope this year I am lucky with seedlings.  The only positive thing I can say about the snow today is I am going to go outside and get a couple of pails of the fresh snow, melt it and use it for my seedlings.  Now I will be taking a much needed break.  Until next time

Marilyn

Do you start seeds indoors?  Any tips to share? Send them in.