Seeds or Seedlings?
One Saturday morning in April we filled peat pots--small,
biodegradable containers--with organic compost or starting mix, added our
selected seeds, and thus initiated the germination process on the window sill
of the High Street Veterans apartment building.
Johnny’s Select Seeds of Maine generously donated 37 packets of seeds to
us, and we started parsley, basil, thyme, okra, hot peppers, onions, chives,
oregano and tomatoes among other things. Although growing from seed can be a
painstaking process, it doesn’t hurt to try. Some of our avid gardeners at High Street have
even pondered the question of whether growing in a garden without starting from
seed could even be considered true gardening!
The High Street Veterans Community Garden has done well this year buying
packets of seeds instead of seedlings for our gardens.
To start the process we filled the peat pots with our chosen
growing medium, planted the seeds according to depth instructions on the
packages, and watered to keep the mix moist. Over the next few weeks we watched as the seedlings
began to sprout. When they reached about
1-2 inches in height we moved the seedlings in their peat pots to our cold
frame outside. The cold frame is a bed
with a plastic bubble lid that protects the plants from the cold. Because of the unusually warm spring we were
able to open the bubble top during the day, closing it during chilly nights,
until the seedlings “hardened.” This
process took about a month. In the
meantime we prepared our 5’ x 4’ raised beds with organic compost and turned
and raked to distribute soil, compost, nutrients and organic fertilizer
evenly. After about a month, our
seedlings were sufficiently sturdy to be transplanted into the raised beds
alongside directly seeded rows of bush bean, beet, carrot and lettuce seeds.
We placed our seedlings into the soil in squared
sections of each plot. Then, we made sure to water them every day.
