I love this time of year. Though we found ourselves blanketed with another foot of snow yesterday, the spring garden is becoming more of a reality. The shelves in my seed-starting area are starting to fill up with flats: leeks, parsley, spinach, peas, kohlrabi, and kale.
When I first started gardening, I used the bagged seed starting mix available in most nurseries for my indoor seed sowing. These are largely comprised of peat, and most have a bit of perlite and/or vermiculite in them as well. These mixes work fine, but they contain hardly any nutrients. For some crops, which you plan on planting out in a month or so, this isn't a big deal. But for crops that are started eight to ten weeks before planting, such as eggplants or tomatoes, I prefer to use a mix that has more nutrients for the plants. I've written a short article with the recipe for my seed starting mix -- I hope you'll check it out.
Not only is it better for your plants, but it's just kind of fun to make your own mix. At this point, it's the closest many of us are going to get to playing in the dirt, right?
Do you make your own seed starting mix?
**Follow Colleen on Twitter | Facebook**
No comments:
Post a Comment