Growing Challenge: Seedlings

We've got some of this going on:

Snow in March

Which means there's no gardening to be had outside. Fortunately, I'm inside so there's plenty to do. Especially if I can scrape off a twin or two. Errr...put them down for a nap, that is. Actually, the napping thing is working out pretty well, except that they aren't in synch. At all. Oh well. I guess that's next on the list of Things To Do.

Meanwhile, here's some green in the middle of winter to ogle (Doesn't that look like it's spelled incorrectly? It's not.).

Did I mention that I've joined the Growing Challenge? Melinda wants us to grow things we never have before. As a maniac person starting a brand new farming business with my friend H., pretty much everything is a new thing we've never grown before. Or at least not in these quantities! I have grown tomatoes and basil and hundreds of flowers before, but never as many as I will this year, from seed. Certainly not this many different varieties of the same things, either.

Sixteen varieties of tomatoes.

A forest of tomatoes.

Eight varieties of basil. Dozens of different types of flowers and herbs and assorted other vegetables.

A "few" basils. Did you know they come in purple?

One of the hardest things about ordering seeds, especially in the depths of winter, is knowing when to stop. Apparently I haven't learned that trick yet.

Ooooh! Seeds.

The above is only a portion of my seed collection (Not pictured: my partner's seed collection.). If I get half of these planted this year I'll be happy. And inundated with plants. Whee!

Basils also come in different flavors. This is Cinnamon basil. Mmm...cinnamon!

Specifically new to me are these:

Purple tomatillos. For when all those tomatoes aren't enough....

I've never grown tomatillos (or rosemary, or melons, or pumpkins, or...) before. These are a purple heirloom variety from Seed Savers Exchange. They have so many fabulous looking seeds available online and even more if you join them. So many that they send you multi-hundred paged catalogs without pictures. That's a problem for me, no pictures, but I could probably live with it. Choosing something at random and giving it a whirl is fun, actually.

In case you were wondering, here's my growing rack:

Shoplights and shelving and soil, oh my!

This is the new one we put together in the living room. The old one is hiding a secret.

The ghost of Basils Past.

Uh oh.

Skeletons in my basement.

Yes, it really is that bad. Last summer I started hundreds of basils from seed but then got too darned pregnant to continue paying attention to them. No, I'm serious. It became too much exertion for me to go up and down stairs. So they died. And there they stayed, entombed within the basement library/plant nursery. Now it's time to clean them up because I need the rack space.

Goodbye sad little basil plants! I'll treat your successors better. Promise!

So, yeah! We're starting up a whole new adventure this year. Organically grown herbs, vegetables, flowers and possibly some fruit. My partner has about 12 acres of land available for our venture. I'm not even certain how much of that we'll put into production, but we'll figure it all out.

On the fly.

Really soon.

The market begins in exactly one month.

Oh and did I mention that we get to eat some portion of the huge amount we'll be growing for sale? Oh yeah! Tomatoes for every occasion, in every color. Also, I promised Caitlin that I'd grow a watermelon and a pumpkin for her. I've never done that before, either. Should be fun!

So I guess I'd better get growin'.

Next week: What lurks in my garage?