Since we can't do anything major to the house yet, I decided I want to start an herb garden for the kitchen. Remember the seeds I started on Earth Day? Well they are huge sprouts now. They are sitting on the windowsill of my kitchen. It made me want to put an herb garden there too, so I got a bunch of plain $.50 pots and painted them, and found some seeds I had from a couple years ago when I wanted to start my own huge veggie and herb garden... that garden didn't really go anywhere since I was 7 months preggo and it was almost summer. I was fat and hot and couldn't bend over... so now I have all these seeds I need to do something with. I only found five packets of seeds, I still have a bunch of boxes (posting a picture blog of the new place later) so the seeds are somewhere in the chaos of cardboard boxes.
Anyway, starting the herb garden.
Starting seeds is always a tricky thing to do, so don't be alarmed if you don't succeed very well the first few times. To make it easier, you need to first gather the RIGHT materials. Such as -
- Seed Starting Potting soil.
- Seeds
- Seed starting pots. nothing too big, and nothing too deep.
- Water (I use a spray bottle for seeds so I don't completely drown them)
These are my little pots I painted. But since I only have five packets, I really didn't need all of them right now.
These are the five pots I chose. I picked the most bright/springy coloured ones...since it is spring.
Make sure you have Seed Starting Potting Soil. This is Very fine and very light. Some even have a little bit of food for the seeds when the sprout. But it is so much easier for the seeds to grow in rather than regular potting soil.
Fill your pot up almost towards the top, leaving about a half an inch of space from the top. DO NOT PACK. Remember, your seeds are little babies! They need to be able to move and grow. I lightly tap down the top of the soil to keep it from being too loose, but that's it
Lightly water the soil, so it's moist, not wet. This is why a spray bottle is helpful.
Now I don't have any seed markers yet. That's probably going to be another DIY blog later, but for now, this picture is the only source of indication of which seed is in which pot.
Now that all my pots have soil, it's time for the seeds. Normally with flower or produce seeds, I like to soak the seeds. This really helps to break down the hard shell of the seeds. Remember, in Mother Nature, those seeds go through a hell of a lot. Breaking down the shell is the equivalent to what they go through naturally.
However- since herb seeds are itty bitty tiny, I didn't soak them, I just kind of cracked the shell a little bit. If you decide to do this, do it GENTLY. Don't completely crush your seed, but just open it a bit with something hard. this allows the water to get to the seed, inside the shell.
Now before actually planting, make sure you do a little research of your seed. They all have the basic concept, but it's still helpful to know what you're dealing with.
sprinkle a couple seeds, no more than 10 in your pot and either cover LIGHTLY with a sprinkle of soil, or just press the seeds underneath the already soil. A couple more spritz of water and you're done.
Place the seeds in a warm sunny place and make sure to keep them moist. NOT DAMP but warm and moist. In a weird way...it's kind of the mother's womb for seeds. But seeds need to be warm, a lot of gardeners say to plastic wrap them to keep the humidity in the pot.
Here are my finished seeds. As long as you do what you're suppose to, The seeds should take care of themselves. It's gonna take a couple weeks for them to start showing but they should do well.
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