Seed Starting

As the end of my holiday vacation ends the gardening season begins. It's too late to regret not having taken this time to start a lot of seeds. I could have started many more  but wasn't in the mood. I actually got some rest. Today was the day to start some seeds. It's time. Any day now seed starting racks and supplies will be appearing in big box stores and nurseries. Waiting patiently as I've used most of my peat and coir pellets. If I go to Primex the nearest nursery, I can get more at any time. It's not in Philly, although not far outside the city. They have a seed starting class in January. I attended one before offered by the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society. I wonder if this one would have any new information for me to learn? Here is a link for their list of gardening classes. It's a nice variety of classes. I'm thinking about the orchid class. I'll miss having my mom with me as we attended classes together. 

There are other nurseries in Philly. I've never been to Greensgrow Farm yet. There are also different gardening stores such as Urban Jungle in South Philly and City Planter in the Northern Liberty section. Both are nice stores with a nice variety of plants, pots, and gardening supplies. Several years ago we had a Franks Nursery but that went out of business. There's also Laurel Hill Gardens which is the closets to me in Chestnut Hill. I've actually never been there.

My seed starting rack is already getting crowded. Time to clear the 3rd shelf and eventually the last shelf. The begonias that took so long to germinate are taking up space. Only a few seeds germinated in each tray and the seedlings are tiny as the dragon wing ones were when they germinated. I didn't give an update on the pansies. They were trashed. How I sowed the seeds was my fault and they came up leggy and crowded. I'm still not giving up on them. There will be time to try again. I have seed starting trays soaking that need to be cleaned and dried so they're ready when I have the urge to start more seeds. So I started several types of seeds: wizard pineapple coleus, black dragon, coleus kong red, wizard coral sunrise, wizard scarlet coleus, mighty mosaic coleus, giant exhibition rustic red coleus, superfine rainbow red velvet coleus, superfine rainbow volcano coleus, petunia fancy dress, and the licorice plant and euphorbia glitz. I'll start more petunias when the trays are cleaned. Last season I had no success with them as I sprinkled the seeds not planting them in individual cells. Not this year. Petunias can grow quick. I hope it's not too early.

Euphorbia is actually a cool season annual. Didn't know this. The directions recommended it be grown in a cool environment at a temperature of 55 at night. I'm put them in the kitchen window and hope they germinate and get enough light there. If not, they'll go on the seed rack for 16 hours of light and then be put in the window afterwards.  Not having to buy one plant for $5.00's this year would be nice.