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.

Planting Spinach in a Hanging Basket

I've never planted vegetable seeds in the fall before. It always seemed complicated to take of. But new this year, I decided to give it a try. I checked the Portland Nursery's chart and found that I could plant spinach at the end of August. I love putting spinach in my sandwiches and eating spinach salads, so I picked up a package of spinach seeds, along with some radish seeds (more on that later) at the Down to Earth garden store.

      My pots were already full of other things, and an empty patch of my raised bed would be used for radishes, so I had to find somewhere else to plant them. (Enter the incredibly dead hanging flower basket.) I was able to resurrect its flowers this season for a little while after pruning, but something got to it and killed it. So, I decided to empty the basket, fill it with new dirt from Bi-Mart and plant the seeds in it.
     That week the seedlings started to come up, so I thinned them apart according to the seed packets directions. It will take a while before they are ready to pick and eat, but it's fun to watch them grow in the meantime.

Stock up on seeds

This might not be the best time of year to look for vegetable seeds, but if you look hard enough, you can find some for a great deal. This morning I stopped at a local drug store called Hiron's to browse. Outside the front of the store, I found a lot of vegetable and flower seeds on sale. Each package marked 59¢ regular price was on sale for 10¢! I didn't want to go too crazy, so I used some of my quarters to get just $1 worth of seeds. I bought carrot, parsley, tomato, bunching onion, marigold, lettuce, pepper, cucumber and radish seeds.

I will save most, if not all, of these seeds for next season. I'll have to do more planning for sure to make sure I don't get overwhelmed.

So as you're getting ready for fall, stock up on seeds, trade seeds with fellow gardeners, and plant what you can for your fall and winter crop.