Spring sprouts!

SPROUTS!

I started some seeds for my spring garden crops last weekend and--lo! and behold!--midweek I had some sprouts!

Plastic greenhouse with grow light
and water spray bottle near my
heating vent. This is gardening, folks.

My setup isn't ideal, but I'm doing my best. I used the little plastic greenhouse tray I kept from last year's "Secret Garden" mishap and decided to leave the lid on only until I got my first sprouts. Last year I ended up with mold and sick seedlings to boot... No one really mentions that on the greenhouse packaging. They just say to keep the seedlings warm and moist... but that *duh* equals mold. No more mold for my seedlings! I have the tray on top of a towel on the ground near a heating vent in my house. (My house is old and doesn't warm up really well... so I wanted to keep the plants warm.) I bought a fluorescent "grow light" to give my plants some faux sun since Pittsburgh is anything but sunny right now... not that I have decently sunny windows anyway. Three-quarters of my house is surrounded with porches, which keeps the house cool all year (whether I want it to be cool or not).

I learned a LOT from my garden last year, and I'm taking a new approach to gardening thanks to the stellar class I took through Grow Pittsburgh. (Best $60 I ever spent!) I grew several flowers and vegetables from seeds last year, but I'm going to try to grow all my crops from seeds this year--vegetables, herbs, and flowers.

So far I've started the following seeds:

• lettuce (sprouted)
• broccoli (sprouted)
• lavender (some sprouted)
• Shasta daisies
• lemon balm

I need to get my spinach seeds SOON so I have those seedlings ready to plant when the rest of these seedlings are ready at the end of April/beginning of May. The rest of my spring crops I plan to plant by direct seeding (seeds in the ground, not started indoors for transplanting). But, naturally, I will need to wait for the weather to cooperate for most of those to even have a chance at survival.

This year's garden is off to a great start!

Look at those happy little sprouts. :)