St Fiacre's Acre: Starting Seeds in the Kitchen

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Starting Seeds in the Kitchen

Tonight I started some seeds in the kitchen. Eggplant, tomato, tomatillo, sweet and hot peppers, artichokes and some purple cauliflower.

I have two shop lights (about $8 each) hanging from the bottom of one of my kitchen cabinets. These lights are on for 16 hours a day. K is building an A-frame structure that will have 2 or 3 levels of shop lights to accommodate larger plants. I'll post a picture of it when he finishes it. I'm using seed starting trays with expandable peat pellets. These are expensive, and peat is non-renewable, but these trays are super convenient.

I'm starting seeds a bit earlier than usual because I want to have bigger, stronger plants than I did last year. Also I think I'll put some out early and use a wall o' water or two.

We are in USDA zone 7b. Our average last frost date is in mid April.

I've never tried to grow artichokes before. And I've never successfully grown eggplant.

1 comment:

RW said...: Eggplant I grew up eating that out of my Dad & Moms garden...mom used to slice it thin and batter it, fry it up...mmmmmmmmmmm..I havent had that in years!; February 24, 2007 at 8:34 PM

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Welcome to St. Fiacre"s Acre!

St. Fiacre's Acre is our daily garden journal. We write about our attempt to grow healthy, organic food using ecologically and economically responsible practices. It is also the story of our transition to a more self-reliant (and we think, sane) lifestyle, known as "Suburban Homesteading". So we also write about our attempts to use fewer resources and do more things for ourselves, for instance, growing most of our own food, learning to make our Garden fence, gate and trellises from bentwood and our own soap and essential oil from herbs we've grown in the Garden. As you'll see, we're utter beginners, with plenty of mistakes from which to learn! St. Fiacre's is also a discussion of the social, philosophical and spiritual dimensions of our journey. So, we write about the philosophy that informs our version of Suburban Homesteading, about the wider grassroots Homesteading movement, and about the many ways in which a divine reality shows up in our gardening and Homesteading experiences. We offer these daily entries for the entertainment of our readers. We do not intend them as Universal Truths that everyone ought to live by. Indeed, the truths we've discovered thus far seem to be specifically relevant to us. If they are helpful to others on the Path (whether the Spiritual Path or the Garden Path), then wonderful. If not, then that's okay too. As a very wise and gracious Buddhist teacher once told me, "if you find my teachings useful, then use them; if not, then please feel free to forget about them". : )

St Fiacre's Acre

Thursday, February 22, 2007

Starting Seeds in the Kitchen

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