Almost Spring, in my dreams

Late yesterday afternoon I trudged from the car through the snow to a Home Depot to pick up a few things for a home project. After getting inside and shaking off the snow, I was met with a wonderful display of seeds for the garden.

Around here, we can’t plant anything outside until May, and it’s usually late May at that. However, after the problems last year with the tomato blight, I decided to start my own seeds for some vegetables for this year’s garden. Therefore at some point I was planning on getting those seeds.

It’s certainly economical to do so: a pack of tomato seeds yielding one to two dozen plants is less than $2. To jump to the punchline, I did buy some seeds. I got 2 varieties of hot peppers, two of sweet peppers, two of basil, and four of tomatoes.

I’m not going to put plants from all the seeds into the garden, but since I’m not planting corn this year (the raccoons got all of it), I have a lot of extra room. So I might do half a dozen of each of the tomato and pepper varieties and then a lot of basil, most of it to be used for pesto. I’ll also plant other vegetables like lettuce, peas, and beans, but I’ll run through there when I publish the post mortem on last year’s garden.

Note that while I bought these seeds on impulse, my final selection of plants to start will be developed over the next couple of months. In particular, I’ll be looking at some organic seed providers such as High Mowing Seeds, based in Hardwick, VT. This company was featured in a one hour Emeril Green special in early January, 2010.

I’ll need to start the seeds indoors 6 to 8 weeks before they must go outside, so that puts the date around April 1. I have some work to do before then on this project, primarily figuring out where I’ll put the seeds and how to set up a grow light. It’s all fun, and all helps the winter go by faster.

Also see: “Getting ready for Spring gardening in upstate NY” for suppliers of gardening supplies, plants, and seeds.