Even with snow on the ground, you can’t miss the biggest sign of spring a the SLP cat ranch, the return of the CPPC (the Cat-Proof Protection Chamber) in the corner of our kitchen. Two years ago the BF and Science Dave built our special seed starting chamber and the CPPC has performed it’s two tasks perfectly: Keep the seedings healthy and keep our four naughty cats away from our healthy seedings. (You can see it in more detail here and here…)

This third time around, I’ve decided to scale back a bit. I usually grow two flats of heirloom tomatoes, peppers and basil — then end up giving most of them away. So Saturday, I planted only half a flat with my veggie garden in mind. I saved the other half for my new flower garden which hopefully be an aesthetically pleasing assortment of little blue stem, prairie clover, platinum blue, billy button and foxglove.

I also started a smaller tray of fennel and leeks. (Between you and me, I view this tray as an experiment not likely to succeed. When it comes to members of the onion family, I have a bit of a black thumb.) Parsley and cilantro were sown in larger pots.

According to the seed packet, Himalayan blue poppies require a few weeks in a cold frame, something the BF and Science Dave could build — if I didn’t mind planting my poppies in August. So, I bundled my seed trays in pots of newspaper, buried them in some mulch on the south side of the house, then made a faux frame with a protective sheet of plexiglass from the basement. (Again, I realize this is another disappointment waiting to happen. Our cat, Steve Johnson, looks skeptical, doesn’t he?)

Finally, I planted some butterfly weed and put it in the fridge for a little extra cold conditioning (as recommended by the seed packet)… and then a little extra explaining to the BF (not detailed by the seed packet)…

“Hon, is this a tray of moldy take-out or future plants?”

“Future plants. We can take them out in three weeks.”

“Gotcha.”

Water, seed staring soil, grow lights, we gardeners we can only do so much preparation. The rest is up to Mother Nature. The first few weeks of seed starting can be incredibly uneventful as much of seed starting is actually “dirt observing.” Some heirloom peppers can take two weeks to sprout — that’s fourteen agonizingly long days of staring at the potting mix, searching for the slightest hint of green.

I figured my seedlings would need at least a week to germinate. But when I checked the CPPC Tuesday morning, the basil had already sprouted! Go basil, go!

Are you starting seeds? What are you growing? Have you gotten to everything on your to-do list?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 7:15 am and is filed under Seed starting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.