I am excited to share more gardening tips with you all today, but I am wishing that I had organized my pictures better!  So, just work with me and let’s pretend like there is some sort of order to this chaos. Okay?  Sweet!

This was the result of a trip to Lowe’s. Silly Matthew thought I would not find anything that I wanted.  Well those strawberries were like 75 percent off and cost $1 or so.  The onions were $1 as well.  The mini greenhouses are pretty sweet, and I will show you how to use them later in this post.  There were also grapevines on sale.  They were only $3, instead of $9!  We ended up with 5 grapevines.  And I’m pretty sure that 3 of them did not take and neither did the strawberries.    But I did learn a lesson from that — buy strawberries that are already growing.   Apparently that’s what the MIL does.  She’s frugal too, so I know she doesn’t go the expensive way unless she has to!

Remember those trays from last week?  Well I planted hot peppers in 3 of them, and tomatoes in 3 of them.  You can see that I put 2 or 3 seeds in each spot.  This gives me a better chance that one of them will grow. You can always pull out an extra seedling, but it takes a lot more time to start over.  You can plant both peppers and tomatoes in pots, so these are great for a patio garden. We had a pepper in a 12″ by 14″ pot for a long time, and it did really well (it lasted through last winter and sprouted new growth this year!).  If you do not have leftover trays like this, you can probably ask if they have some to give away at Home Depot.  Or make your own out of half of a toilet paper roll, or little cups work too.  And then fill it with that fertilized soil or just buy nice soil from the store, apparently Kmart has really good prices on bags of soil.  And Miracle Gro is the best.  These are just things that the MIL says.

Below, you can see what I have started for my “porch garden,” as I will now on call my potted garden.  The tomato and pepper seedlings are there, as well as some bean seedlings.  I put Rosemary and another herb in the medium sized pots.  And I planted lettuce in the large pot. You can grow lots of lettuce in pots.  You do not need to start it in a starter, just throw the seeds right in the pot. I made 5 or 6 indentations in the soil and stuck 2 or 3 seeds in each.  And that’s a plastic pot, used to hold some sort of hanging flower arrangement that someone gave us.  Reuse!

Now we will go back to that tray.  You can use this for a porch garden, but it has SO MANY spots, that I think it’s more practical for a larger garden.  You can see all of the seeds that I bought, and some are from last year (don’t know if they will work, but I’m trying!).  You won’t put the lettuce strip in the little pots, but they are in the picture anyways

You need to water your soil pots.  This set came with 72 little soil pots, but you can buy refills if you use them up (or if you freeze your first ones by leaving them outside overnight too early and thus lose your first trial.  I am fighting for my green thumb, trust me!).  Set the little pods out.  You will be able to see a little hole on the top of one side, make sure that is up.  It’s the opening where you will put your seed in.

Pour in lots and lots of water.  I think it took more than 3 buckets full.  You can pretty much just drown them, and then pour out extra water, if you have any left.  You will be surprised how much it takes!  And then you wait.  Go ahead and walk away for 20 minutes or so.  Make yourself a drink.  Have a snack.  Plant something else (at this point I planted a peach tree which we had gotten on sale).  You get the idea.

Once they are fully waterlogged, you can put your seeds in.  I like to rip the tops open and smoosh around the soil.  Then I meticulously plant my seeds (remember 2 or 3 per pod) in each one.  This is the batch that had to be tossed.  That was really depressing. But I got back on my horse and tried again.  And I have seedling sprouting in round two!  So what lesson did we learn?  Leave them inside until you are ABSOLUTELY POSITIVE the cold season is over.  (Do remember I live in sunny So Cal, so my season is a bit earlier than everyone else’s, I think!) And then leave them inside a few days more.  I’ve been leaving mine inside at night, but taking them out during the day, so they get sun. You can see how I label my seeds here, with the little popsicle sticks, cut in half.  For the second round, I did little pods of 4 per seed, not a row of 6.  so each 4 patch was labeled.  And I made a corresponding cheat sheet, in case I lose my labels!

Put your lid on and let it heat up and get working!  It should have condensation on the lid, that means photosynthesis is happening!

Were these tips helpful?  Is there anything else you want to know?  And what seeds have you all started for your garden?