I just planted my garden

It may be the middle of the January, and it is -18°C outside, but that doesn’t mean gardening is out of the question!

I haven’t had a winter garden for a few years. No real good reason, just had too much going on I guess. I really don’t know what I’m doing, but growing things is really pretty easy, so I’m giving it another try.

Tonight I planted a row of parsley, thyme, basil, arugula, chives, and tiny tim tomatoes. The later two are from seed packets that are several years old, so I’m not sure those seeds will want to grow, but I have some hope! I couldn’t find seeds in the store today for the two herbs I know I can grow inside, rosemary and oregano, so I bought little starter plants of each 🙂

Here is my garden!

The planting labels were all nice and cutesy until I realized they were obviously not going to fit under the moisture control lid! Don’t tell Jeff, but I borrowed his tin snips from the other side of the basement (man town) to snip the label tags in half so they’d fit under the lid.

I haven’t used these peat pots before. I usually just start in the pots right away, but since I had them (great gift!) and they have a lid to keep the moisture in while they germinate, it seemed like a fabulous idea! I’ll move them to bigger pots.

I also planted two pots of a lettuce mesclun mix. I grew these before too. It is a nice little lettuce mixture that you can snip leaves from for a sandwich. I’m don’t remember ever having enough for a salad, but it sure is neat to grow lettuce inside 🙂

Hopefully the tomatoes grow. Last time I grew these tomatoes inside, I had blossoms, but no tomatoes. Why? Because I forgot the flowers would need pollination! Apparently blowing a fan on the tomato plants, or giving it a good shake will even do the trick. Now I know!

I lowered the grow lights down to just a few inches above the pots and peat pod container. Now I just need to find a good three-prong timer to keep the light hours consistent.

The grow light hood I’m using is from Vesey’s. (View their light gardens.) The light hood is easily adjusted so as the plants grow, you can just raise it.

Since the garden is right near the wood stove, it is in a handy place to keep my eye on it, keep the temperature up, and spritz the soil with water to keep it moist. And I have four empty rows to plant if I can think of what else my garden needs. Any ideas?

I also have a sprouter and seeds kicking around. I think it is time to get my sprout garden growing too!