On February 11th my wife and I started our seedlings. Now, just so you are aware…I’ve never, ever tried to grow my own plants from seeds indoors. Yeah, never. But, last year’s experience taught me two main things…1) get a jump on the growing season by using healthy well started plants, 2) those plants referenced in #1 are getting really expensive and weren’t easy to come by last year. So that led me to the decision this year…grow my own starter plants. And I spent a whole lot of time researching the right ways to do all of the above.

As I was saying on 2/11 we planted our seeds. On 2/18 they looked like this.

Everything looking good for our plants…but the picture shows one HUGE mistake…any guesses?

If you guessed the onion set starter box you would be 100% correct. The box is way too big, the dirt way to deep, and blocks out way too much sun for the other plants.

If you are wondering why we started what we did, here is the explanation:

1. Opinions – We love to use onions in a lot of what we cook. They are pretty easy to grow, can thrive in our climate, and taste really good. They also store reasonably well, and can be frozen.
2. Tomatoes – This could easily be the root of our diet. We love tomatoes! And we are most fond of Roma and cherry varieties. The cherry tomatoes go into salads. The Roma tomatoes get eaten whole, sliced on sandwiches, cooked into sauces, and dehydrated with a little olive oil and Italian seasoning on them. Roma tomatoes tend to be meatier and less juice…exactly what we want.
3. Peppers – Similar to tomatoes…they go into just about anything. We do a couple of primary things with them; 1) they get made into a pasta sauce that is out of this world good, 2) diced dehydrated, 3) turned into a “shaker pepper”. We take all our left over peppers, dehydrate the crap out of them, then put them all together into a blender, and blend them until the consistency of a coarse black pepper. We vacuum seal the coarse powder into small pouches…about a 1/2 cup. When the time comes we open a pouch, put the contents into a shaker and we have a really, really good pepper seasoning.
4. Watermelon – it is juicy, refreshing, and hydrating. Sitting outside on the patio on a warm summer night eating a piece, or ten, of watermelon is simply divine.

And we have to start cantaloupes soon. They didn’t have the seed last time we were in the store. We will check tomorrow. Then they get started as well…in the most prominent spot of course! Nothing better than eating cantaloupe picked fresh off the vine early on a summer morning for breakfast!

So here is some information that I hope helps…

And in case you are wondering…no, it is not too late for most people to just be starting their seeds indoors. Most plants can be started indoors 4 – 6 weeks before transplanting outdoors. So you should have enough time, maybe even plenty of time.

Related Articles:

• It’s time for garden prepping ! (2/16/2021)

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