Starting My 'Starts'

This week I started my seeds. I was hoping to get the celery and watermelon going, too, but the seed store didn't have celery seed. In the long run it didn't really matter because I ran out of earth before I even got to the watermelons. All I managed to plant were the three types of tomatoes, green and red peppers. Everything I planted came from I saved from last year.

It was nice stopping in at the garden nursery. I don't go so much anymore. I make my own compost, collect most of my own seeds and now I'm taking a shot at seedlings so my visits are down to one or two through the whole season. It was nice chatting with the staff again and catching up on what people had been doing throughout the winter. Of course, the conversation turned to why I was there and I explained about the coldframe idea I was hoping to do. "Oh," they said, "You are are going to do your own starts." I had no idea what they meant, I kind of figured it out, of course; but I have never heard seedlings called 'starts'. I'm wondering if it is an 'island' thing.

I must admit I am a little concerned about doing seeds. I've never had much luck with tomatoes. They get all spindly and then die...or I drown them when they are babies and they die...or I let them dry out too much and then they die. Reoccurring theme here is that they always die. Hopefully this time it will be different. I've done a lot of reading and talked to a lot of people so hopefully some of these seeds actually turn into plants. If not, I'll go visit the nice folks down at the garden place; they say they don't see me enough, anyway.