Starting Plants From Seeds Update!
Hard to believe, but Saturday it was 3 weeks since first planting tomato seeds and more in the Biodome from Park Seed. Not every seed sprouted, but most did, and grew quickly. This is the fun part of starting seedlings indoors!
Starting Seedlings Indoors Update!
Planting seeds and watching little plants pop up is such fun! It’s one of the neatest things about starting seedlings indoors. Here it is, less than a week since I planted seeds in the planting trays, and already several are growing.
Just yesterday, 5 days after the seeds were planted, the first began sprouting up. It didn’t take long! And of course, this morning when I looked, there were even more little plants starting to grow.
Seed Starter Kit for Fun & Easy Planting!
I decided to try some different seed starting supplies this year. In the past, I’ve used the flimsy black trays, which work fine, but aren’t very sturdy.
I really liked the looks of this seed starter kit I found at Park Seeds, called a Bio Dome seed starting kit. It’s made of heavier plastic than the usual black trays, and comes in 4 different versions:
Tilling The Garden
The Farmer has been working on getting a garden all tilled up. He’s making sure there is plenty of room to plant everything we want…
All this for a few tomato and pepper plants?
I think we’re going to plant a lot of marigolds to keep away bugs and take up space.
He worked really hard at getting the dirt good and loose.
Tilling away!
We won’t plant anything until we get back from Florida (going to visit family the week of April 19th!).
But when we do… oh my, that’s a LOT of space!
Happy 226th Birthday Landreth Seeds!
Happy 226th Birthday
to D. Landreth Seed Company!
If you like gardening, you should know about Landreth Seed Company. Browsing through their catalog is at least a 3-bib drool-a-thon for gardeners.
The company first opened in Philadelphia on January 7, 1784. Now how many seed companies do you know that have stayed in business 226 years?
Some of their initial customers included such notables as George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Joseph Bonaparte (Napoleon’s brother).
This company introduced the Zinnia into the United States, and what would a summer flowerbed be without cheerful zinnias? Landreth also introduced the first truly white potato. (Potatoes were yellow before that.) Now they not only have white potatoes, but other colors like purple!
And a crowning achievement in my estimation – in 1820, Landreth introduced the tomato. Think how many foods you eat that have tomatoes in them! Spaghetti sauce, pizza sauce, ketchup, salad tomatoes, sliced tomatoes on sandwiches… the list could go on and on. It’s hard to believe people first thought tomatoes were poisonous!
They have about 85 different kind of tomatoes now, with some great heirloom varieties like Brandywine.
Reading about Landreth’s history is pretty interesting. They are the fifth oldest corporation in America, and claim to have sold seed to every American president from George Washington to Franklin D. Roosevelt.
In their words,
“The Landreth story is the story of an American family business which was born near the time of America’s birth and grew with America over three centuries. It is a story of strong minded men and women of principle, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters who pursued a path of innovation and exploration with the pioneering spirit that will always be the essence of what makes this country great.”
So Happy Birthday to an American success story that helps our gardens grow!