Declutter It!

Time to start organizing your garden seeds

by Jennifer on March 18th, 2008

This is just about the earliest time of the year (in North America) to start prepping your outdoor seeds for spring. You can of course, sow quick grow plants indoors year round (think lettuce), but most transplants with a long growing season, like bell peppers, tomatoes, etc., should be started now, not earlier.

Since we’re also currently working on eliminating our clutter, and considering how to not make more clutter, we can use our old milk cartons to get our seeds going.

Split the cartons in half lengthwise, and punch holes in the bottom (a nail or plain old knife works). Fill the carton with completely wet, but squeezed dry potting soil. Plant your seeds 6 cm apart, and of course according to directions on your seed packets, cover with a thin layer of soil and you’re done. Label each carton and place in a plastic bag you have sitting around (a grocery store bag will work).

Check your seeds each day. The second the seeds sprout you need to take them out of the plastic bags and place in a sunny spot inside. A window is fine. Once in a while you can feed them with an organic fertilizer. By the time spring sets in, and the soil outside warms up, your plants will be ready to transplant.

If you don’t get milk in cartons, you’re going to have to use good old seed trays.

This is also the perfect time of year to test your left-over from last year seed stash for viable seeds. Place a paper towel on a cookie sheet. Place about six seeds from each stash on the paper towel and sprinkle the seeds until wet, but not drowning, just damp-wet. Cover the seeds with another damp paper towel and place the tray somewhere slightly warm - say, on top of the fridge. Check them each day for three days. If most of your six seeds sprouted, 4-5 then your seeds are ok to use this year. If less than four sprouted, toss them.

What not to do:

By the way, the first year I tried testing my leftover seeds, I actually wrote (in ink) on the paper towels, and then sprinkled the water on. I’m good at a lot of things, but I always mess up something when it comes to gardening. Of course the names of all my seeds washed away, and I had no clue which were which. Now what I do is simply tape a small piece of scratch paper on the edge of the cookie sheet. It works much better!

These are a couple of good ways to start organizing your garden this year. For many more gardening tips, from someone who knows her way around the garden far better than I do, visit Mother Earth’s Garden. In fact, I just now went to grab a link from Mother Earth’s Garden, and that darn Linette has a post up about seed starting, which I did not read, since I’m sure it rocks, and will make me jealous. But, you can read it: Starting Your Own Seeds.

Do you garden? What are some of your early garden prep plans?

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POSTED IN: Garden