Planting day

So, today is the first day of warm weather since the blizzard on Friday. I decided to plant my seeds today. According to most resources I've read it seems as if I should have planted them earlier. However, that still wouldn't have done me too much good as it's usually cold around here until at least March anyway (unless we have an exceptionally warm winter.)

So, I began by gathering all my supplies in the backyard.


I have ten pots that I've gathered form various other planting times at my house. There was about an even number of larger pots to smaller pots. Depending on how big the plants get, I don't plan on moving the ones in the biggest pots to other pots right awya. There is one very tiny pot that I will definately move the plant from to a bigger one. The ones in between will depend on how big the plants in them get.

I also asembled my potting mixes. I got a bag of standard potting mix from the local garden store. Barney says it's best to use a peat moss based soil with perlite or some other draining material. I also grabbed a bag of Perlite that my dad found in the garage and some older soil leftover from a few years ago.

Of course I also grabbed the pack of seeds, a spade and a spray bottle.

I mixed up the soil components in a large bucket. I also grabbed a few spadefuls of the dirt beneath our apple tree and added it to the mix. I did this because an employee at the local garden store said it would be a good idea because it would introduce a little bit of the soil makeup native to Colorado. That way the plants will be a little more ready when I decide to transplant them.

I filled each pot to the top and pat down the soil and firm it so that it was not right at the rim of the pot.

And then came the seeds. Now, I don't know if anyone has heard the parable of the mustard seed. I wonder if it could also be the parable of the huckleberry seed. These things are the tinyest seeds I have seen in my entire life. It was like trying to plant grains of sand. I had to go on faith that I had actually put some seeds in a couple of the pots. A word of advice on this would be that next time I plant I'm goint t ojust go down the line, back sure I get every vessel and then over the seeds, as opposed to doing each pot individually.

After planting the seeds and covering them. I assembled the pots on a porch table. It gets a good aount of sun each day and is out of reach of the dogs. Once the seeds sprout I'm going to move them to different places in the yard to see which ones get the best combination of sun, shade, and which one will just grow better. I paired a large pot with a small pot so that I know that the growing isn't because of the size of the pot.

I then sprayed each pot with some water so that it was moist. I'll continue to do this when they dry out.