Starting Seeds... In March

I've decided to start something new...ish. When COVID shut everything down in 2020, I needed something to do (I'm pretty sure we all did!). What do you do when you can't go anywhere? Well you decide to socialize baby chicks of course! It was probably one of the most delightful things I've ever done. The kids loved it, but there was chicken poop everywhere, Baby chicks, unlike puppies or kittens, will poop just about anywhere. On your hand, on your floor, on your chair, like I said, pretty much anywhere. Also, we weren't keeping them. Chickens are "illegal" in our neck of the woods. But they were fun, and it made all of us pretty happy during a very rough time. So poop and all, it was worth it.

Once the baby chicks were gone, I needed another project. We have always had a garden. When we moved in to our current house, there was one already established. Over the last nine years, we've added to it. Every year in May, I trek over to Lowe's or Home Depot or our cute nearby garden store and buy a ton of already established tomatoes, cucumbers jalapenos, peppers, herbs, squash, just all of it. But in 2020, I had time... a lot of it. That year, I trekked to the nearby garden store in March and bought seed trays, seeds, peat pellets (the things the seeds go in), and seed starter. I bought lights off of Amazon. I watched YouTube gardening videos and read gardening blogs and books. I had no idea what I was doing, but I tried anyway. I was relatively successful. In May I was able to plant peppers, tomatoes, cucumbers, and I got quite a lot of veggies from them.

Last year, with our everything back in full swing, I was not up for that kind of undertaking. Spring is super crazy for us with soccer, baseball, dance competitions, school and life, but this year I had a change of heart. We've had a ridiculous amount of snow days during the month of February, and I had the itch. I started by once again reading a few blogs, watching a few YouTube videos, checking out social media for tips and tricks, and started buying a few things off of Amazon. I got shelving, and seed trays (because I could not for the life of me find the trays from two years ago), I got hanging lights. I bought a completely ridiculous amount of seeds from Baker Creek. Everything came in big and small boxes and sat by front door for a week or two.... And finally in late February the snow and ice came, and once again I found myself with an unplanned day off. I dragged those boxes down to the basement and started putting it all together, and... I'm so excited.

I purchased all of this off of Amazon: the shelving system, lights, and trays. It only took about an hour to put together, and it has wheels which is HUGE. I wasn't sure where I wanted this whole system, and now I can just wheel it to wherever I'm feeling that day. I have no idea if anything will grow, but the setup is cute, which is like 80% of the setup process.

The following week I started pepper and brussel sprout seeds, and guess what? They started to grow! I've since added timer switches because my brain apparently can't handle another thing to remember and I kept forgetting to turn the lights on and off. This has been a game changer! The little babies are growing and I'm one proud mama. We are in zone 6a, so I can start my tomato, cucumber, lettuce and zucchini seeds anytime now. For the record, I've never been able to grow zucchini, like ever. Zucchini may be the bane of my existence. So, it may work out, it may fail miserably, but gardening is just like that. Until then, I'll enjoy the process.