Apartment Gardening: Planting Seeds

I remember the first time I planted anything from seed. I was nervous that it wouldn't work. It's much easier to plant vegetables and flowers when all the hard has already been done for you by someone who knows what they're doing. But a couple years ago I took the jump and planted basil from seeds I got from my mom but was afraid to plant myself until then.

It actually wasn't as hard as I thought. However, I didn't bother to look at a planting calendar, which tells you the best time to plant things. But the basil came up and soon I was able to eat my favorite herb with spaghetti, Caprese salad and scrambled eggs. Since then, I've also planted lettuce, peas, spinach and cilantro from seed.

But, like every gardener, I'm still learning. I recently started producing a gardening segment at work (see video below), and the first topic we did was starting from seed. The new thing I learned was that if you want to start from seed in those little trays that you then transplant from, you have to use seed starter, not just any old dirt or potting soil. This explains why the lettuce plants on my window sill this year haven't come up yet. I used the wrong dirt. Well, there's still time to start over. I guess I know what I'm getting the next time I'm in the garden shop.