Early crop first planting

Last week Tapper (my four-year-old son) and I sowed the first early crop planting in the garden and also started our first batch of seedlings. The early season is all about greens, root crops and spices. In the garden we planted three small rows of lettuce (Bibb, Romaine and Black Seeded Simpson) as well as a row of Arugula. If you plan to eat a lot of any particular vegetable it's a good idea to practice "succession planting", which is a fancy term for planting a little bit several times separated by a couple of weeks; that way you don't end up with a truck load of beets all at once. The usual practice for leaf vegetables is to sprinkle the seeds up and down the row, then thin them later, but I just cannot stand the thought of using all of that seed only to cut the plants off in their infancy. So, instead I get out my ruler and plant individual seeds spaced out for full-sized plants.

Spacing Seeds	Row Markers	Marked Rows

It's entirely possible that some of the seeds won't sprout, but I don't mind going back over the row later to fill in the gaps. At the same time, I don't like wasting garden space, so I ignore row-spacing guidelines and just separate rows by the space required for the largest plant. I mark my rows with numbered sticks and I keep a list of what number corresponds to which plant.

Some plants are easier to grow in seedling starter pots before transplanting to the garden. There are all sorts of seedling starter systems and kits you can purchase pretty much anywhere you can get potting soil. Last year I used the "Jiffy-7" pellets which worked out pretty well. However, when I turned the soil a few weeks ago I discovered that the mesh that holds the pellets together does not biodegrade (in a year's time, anyway). I'm also not entirely sure that the growing plants' roots can penetrate the mesh. So, this year I'm doing it all on my own.

Since one of my purposes in putting in a garden is to save money, I try to limit my costs as much as possible. So, instead of buying seedling trays made for the purpose, I just got some plastic cups (2.75" w. 4.5" h.) and poked a hole in the bottoms. To hold them I found a sale on plastic bins that are wide and short (designed for storing Christmas wrapping paper). Filling the cups with an organic potting soil blend gives me an easily transportable system that I should be able to use for years to come.

Planting the seeds was a lot of fun for Tapper. It was as simple as poking a hole in the soil, dropping in a seed and covering it up. Proper eye protection should be worn, of course.

Poke a hole	Plant a seed	Proper Eye Protection

The seedlings Tapper planted were leeks, celery, extra triple curled parsley, catnip, tarragon and thyme. The seedlings will stay inside for around a month before they start venturing outside during the warmer sunny days.