Proudly 'Pushing It'

February 22, 2009 - Even though for most people it is still kind of early to start seeds (a guy at Agway today told me that I was 'pushing it'), at Zen Acres the time has come. The waiting was killing me and I woke up today knowing that I just had to put my hands in some dirt. So here's what we planted today -
It turns out that I am well within normal planting schedules by starting onions in February. They should be started this month so that they have two months to grow before they get set in the ground outside in April. Perfect! We bought onion seeds last year, but we didn't have any in our garden, which I thought meant that we had just forgotten about them. But when I took them out they had already been opened... which means I probably planted some last year and they never germinated. But hopefully they'll work this time, because we eat A LOT of onions and it could save us some money to have our own. :)

Early this morning I went scrounging around my mother's basement where we did all our seed starting last year. I grabbed a few miscellaneous seed trays and I also found a bag of potting mix, which meant I didn't have to buy any. Yet, anyway. I picked up a wide 3 gallon plastic container for mixing the soil in, and headed home. Our place is tiny just for living in, but now I'm going to ask it to also be a greenhouse. I decided to just jump in rather than work out the details of how we were going to cook and grow plants in our tiny little kitchen for the next few months.

First step was to empty and clean the sink and kitchen counter, and then to wash my plastic seed trays. Then I dumped a few scoopfuls of potting mix into my plastic bin and mixed in some water until it was nice and moist, but not muddy. Here's me prepping the soil in the sink, with one tray on the counter and the other to my left on the stove -

And here is my completed tray of onions!

I know it doesn't look like much, but I'm hoping that after several days we'll start to see what should look like blades of grass popping up everywhere.

So, honestly there really isn't anything else that you're supposed to plant in February. But Joe and I LOVE greens and so I decided to do an experiment with some mesclun and arugula seeds inside. I can't really see why it wouldn't work - once they germinate we'll have to leave them by the south facing window all day, but that shouldn't be a problem. They don't take very long to grow - about 2 or 3 weeks til you can eat the baby greens. So why not?

Here are the pretty little mesclun seeds, and you can kind of see behind my hand is the tray and on the top I've already planted two rows of arugula seeds -

Now I'll just let these babies sit and warm up until they're ready to peek their heads out! Seeds like warm, moist conditions to germinate, so I should probably cover them to keep the warmth and water in the soil. I'll probably pick up the tray covers later today. If they do need water, we usually just use a spray bottle, because if you pour water in at this stage, it compacts the soil and can get kind of muddy in spots.

So many people tell me that they don't know how to grow things. I have to tell you - neither do I really. It's like they say with cooking - if you can follow a recipe, you can cook. Well, if you can read a seed packet, you can start seeds. And what the seed packet doesn't tell you, you just make up as you go. With seeds, you never really know what's going to happen. Last year I neurotically followed the instructions and then worried a lot about nothing coming up. But if nothing comes up, you just start again. There really isn't much lost. And if something DOES come up, it always feels like cause for a celebration! And the best part is - no matter how many mistakes you make, something will almost always come up. Last year Joe and I cooked most of our poor seedlings on a ridiculously hot heating pad by accident, and all but a very few survived to tell the tale.

We are also continuing to eat and make more sprouts -

I'm setting a bad example with this picture though - they really shouldn't be kept in the sun. But it makes a very pretty picture! Since my last post about sprouting, Joe told me that if I didn't start participating in the daily rinsing, then I would have to stop saying how easy they are to grow. It is hard to remember to rinse them a few times a day. But I'm working on it, and when I forget, he's nice enough to pick up the slack. I love him.

I also used the kitchen for it's intended purpose this morning - to make some of my delicious granola -

I love love love making granola. I just started doing it last year because it's so expensive to buy. But by purchasing all the ingredients in bulk at the health food store, it's really pretty reasonable. I keep everything on hand to make it anytime, and store it all together in a big tin above the cupboard. This time I used a touch of coconut oil in place of canola oil - very tasty.

While I was enjoying my morning in the kitchen, I had a little company just outside the door -

I love having chickens!