Last weekend, we got the bulk of our seeds planted.  Our daughter’s awesome preschool teachers saved milk cartons for us for a few weeks – a great big THANK YOU to them!

We used the milk cartons and the seed starting mixture from Walmart.  We fill the cartons with the seed starting dirt, make a whole and put in roughly 3 seeds.  Fill the hole loosely with dirt, water (not too much) and cover with plastic wrap.  Last year I started using big tin foil lasagna pans (also from Walmart) and they work great to keep all the plants contained and generally under our grow lights.   I am not sure how many plants we started yet, but I would estimate it is around 200.

Aerial view of some of the seeds we started:

Planting:

More planting:

One week later…signs of life! 🙂

This year we ordered our seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds and Seed Savers Exchange.  This is in addition to seed that we saved from last year.   I am also ordering seeds from Turtle Tree Seeds, Bountiful Gardens and Horizon Herbs.  We have ordered from them in the past and have been very happy with quality.

I also thought I’d share a few of the varieties that I’m the most excited about:  Black from Tula tomato, Ivory Pear Tomato, Syrian 3 Sided Pepper, Cour di Bue cabbages and Genovese Basil.