What seeds are people starting indoors? My thai peppers are starting to take off, and I just set up some Cherokee Purple tomatoes yesterday. The lavender seeds I started a few weeks ago don’t look to be doing that well, but my Christmas cactus has decided it’s also an Easter cactus!
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I have onions and peppers, I’ll start tomatoes April 1st. About half the peppers are my favorites, and the other half I’m testing out. I’m not growing any hots this year. I have enough dried to last a bit. Mostly green chili peppers and various thick walled sweet peppers, bells and other shapes and sizes. I don’t grow hybrids as I like to save my own seeds. It takes decades, but eventually you can develop a more adapted strain. With tomatoes I’m mostly growing favorites. Not a lot this year. I also have rooted various fig, pomegranate, and currant cuttings during the winter too. I have two Morus nigra seedlings. Finding viable seeds is very difficult. Often the seeds are other species too, alba, rubus, etc. these are true nigra mulberry seeds.
I got seeds from Europe sent by a member here. I need to start Zinnia seeds, and I want to grow oregano from seed, I never grew them from seed, and heard they can be triclky, any tips from anybody I’m all ears. One of the few herbs that can survive our winters, or so I’m told. So i would like to get a couple plants going and hope they come back next year.
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My mom’s Christmas cactus would always bloom two to three times a year. I really like seeing them bloom. I have tried growing one over the years but mine only bloom once a year, maybe. Lucky you.
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I have peppers and stalk celery growing. This weekend I saw tomatoes. I need to saw onions ASAP. I am behind on that.
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I have brassicas and lettuce ready to go out and some still under lights
Starting peppers this weekend and the early tomatoes
Generally, I transplant just about everything
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I have started in chronological order: onions red and white, black currant, hot pepper, sweet peppers, eggplants, basil, cabbage, lettuce, Chinese asters, potatoes(!) 
(I am not kidding, I have to start them in pots, as they couldn’t wait any longer for spring to come. Though they not exactly inside, they are in our garage). The last one are tomatoes, just seeded today.
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I grow tomatoes for my parents, sister & myself every year. In addition, this year a buddy asked if I’d grow his favorites vs. him buying them online. I gladly accepted.
Last year was horrible! I chose a determinate tomato and my folks got that one crop and the tomatoes were small and not good. Nothing like the description. Half my fault though for not knowing the difference between determinate and indeterminate.
So our friend @thepodpiper saw my post and contacted me and told me not to give up. And I was ready to throw in the towel. Dale sent a heaping assortment of seeds, gratis. Thank you Dale. I’m so glad now I’ll be planting tomatoes this year.
These eye candy posts are fun. I love them.
Dax
Began 2-26 and ready to up-pot.
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Wow, all the plants looked great!
Tony
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Peppers, tomatoes and ground cherries getting started. Lettuce, kale, chard and some other greens being hardened off now to go out next weekend.
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You have an impressive set up. I’m thinking about investing in some lights, this is only my second year starting seeds. We don’t really have the sun at our house for most vegetables, but my in-laws decided to start a garden this year so I get to help out and am SO excited. Hopefully it goes well and it turns into an annual family tradition.
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My husband has asked me to stop buying basil plants because I’ve killed so many when trying to keep them indoors lol. You have a lot of seedlings, thanks for sharing photos!
Family tradition is not exact word… Family addiction will fit better .
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Lotta matos!
I’ve got my companion herbs (thyme, parsley, rosemary, oregano, mint, chives, basil, borage) started indoors, as well as my companion flowers (nasturtium, marigold), and my Riesentraube tomatoes, Red Brandywine tomatoes, Yellow Brandywine tomatoes, Ajvarski peppers, Rogosa Violina Gioia butternut, and Fordhook zucchini started indoors. This will be my first year attempting consective/successive plantings, so I already started my Little Gem lettuce, Gigante D’Inverno spinach, and Pink Beauty radish, as well. This weekend, I’ll be adding Dar cucumber, Ali Baba watermelon, and Petit Gris de Rennes to the list. Outside, I am hoping that the severe weather last week didn’t disturb my Wando peas, though I managed to delay the planting of my St. Valery carrots until after the snow melted. I’m sticking with heirloom varieties this year, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed…
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Wow, that is a lot of stuff! Good luck with it! Keep us updated. I keep a rosemary and a hybrid basil growing all winter. I don’t use a ton of spices, just the basics, and always nice to have fresh. I will plant some basil around my tomatoes, and wherever i can fit plants. Direct sow those. I need to start some oregano, everything else is going now. Did my tomatoes today, some slicers, old heirlooms and a couple pastes.
I planted an heirloom strawberry The Strasberry or Fragaria × ananassa ‘Mieze Schindler’ is a variety of the garden strawberry, with a raspberry-like appearance, originally developed by the German breeder Otto Schindler in 1925. I want it for breeding my own unique looking strawberries.
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For the last 3 years, I’ve started my tomatoes and peppers usually in March in either Jiffy peat pods or some other pods. They are under a clear plastic lid and on a heating pad until they sprout, and then they get out under the T8 light bank. After about 3 weeks, when they’re about 3-4" tall, I’d transfer them to 16oz drinking cups where they’d go back under lights until it was time to plant out in about a month.
Since we’ve had freezes in May the last couple years, I’ve decided to bypass the cup stage, and just plant them in the pods in mid April, and then just transplant them in the garden in May. I’m also doing this to save time, as there are other things to do with my time.
Part of the reason I’m doing this is that these plants are pretty tough, and should be OK to transplant directly from the pod tray. It goes back to what @thecityman and I were talking about last year when he thought they ought to do alright as little plants no more than a few inches tall. Of course the ground will need to be warm enough, and not too wet. Plus, it means they won’t be bearing as soon during the summer being that they’re smaller plants.
In a few weeks I’ll need to get out there and turn the ground with the tractor to prepare for the growing season. But it’s been so wet that I can’t really do anything like that now. We’re getting more rain today, and the ground is so soaked. It’s been an incredibly wet winter, and spring so far, I hope it will let up for a while so I can get some chores done. I worry about my trees and berry plants being subjected to all this water.
So, now I need to decide which and how many different varieties of seeds I have to sow.
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Nice. I’d be curious to know how you like the strawberries.
Yes I will report. Interesting back story on the Strasberry. It was thought extinct. After the wall came down in Berlin it was discovered some home gardeners behind the iron curtain were growing it. Thanks to them I now have 2 plants. It’s a shame our relations with Russia have soured as so many unknown heirlooms have been surfacing from Russia. Often ideal for my Michigan environment. Luckily many have made their way here before the 2nd wave of the cold war started again.
The fall of the Iron curtain has meant so much. This winter I was talking to a member here from Bulgaria who lives in Northern Bulgaria and one strain of Morus nigra (black mulberry) grows well there. This country was behind the curtain. Anyway I got seeds and now have 2 seedlings growing. Nigra is the best mulberry out there but will not grow beyond zone 7. This gentleman is in zone 6 and this one nigra grows there, and I now have plants. It may be the only 2 plants of this strain in the United States.
I’m hoping one is a male so I can spread seeds of this new strain around to preserve it.
If not I can still with scion and budwood at least. For now I’ll keep them protected in the winter and experiment with clones to see if it can grow in ground here.
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I have an 8-tube T5HO light. I started onions, which are now outside, as well as lettuce, kale, and broccoli. Now I have:
Tomatoes
Peppers
Rosemary
Thyme (German and Creeping)
Lavender
Echinacea
Painted Daisy
Balloon Flower
Lemon Balm
Redbud
Oregano
Cilantro
Basil
Buddleia
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What a wonderful story! I have been noticing that a lot of unique heirlooms seem to be coming from Russia; it’s nice to know that so many varieties have been preserved - and it’s even nicer to find that they are making there way to new destinations! I look forward to hearing if you were successfully able to propagate viable seeds to continue its preservation.
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