Starting Seeds, 2009

Last year's from-scratch seed starting venture was relatively successful and a lot of fun, so this year we decided to get a little more official. I had in mind a setup something like this one, but still done cheaply. What we came up with is this:

The shelf is a simple wooden one from Ikea, that we figure we'll put to good use in the basement or workshop once it's outlived its time here in the Scullery. We couldn't find plug-in fluorescent shop lights that would fit these shelves (30"), so we settled on some of those cheap metal task lamps attached to clamps. We'll also use these for lots of other projects. We took the clamps off and they're hanging from little teacup hooks. To adjust the height of the lamps, I attached a rubber band. High tech stuff here.


It's not totally ideal - the coverage is not as consistent as I'd like, so I have to kind of shift the flats around (oh! another upgrade - plastic flats and peat pots!) to get things to grow straight, but it's a huge improvement from my single ghetto lightbulb from last year.

And here's a sampling of the stuff we planted:
Peppers: jalepeno, anaheim, banana, jingle bells, poblano
Tomatoes: san marzano, sungold, yellow pear, jaune flammee, black cherry
Basils: lime, purple ruffles, lettuce-leaf, cinnamon
Flowers: cape daisy, african daisy, sweet pea, california poppy, peony poppy
Etc: cucumber, watermelon, tomatillo

They're labeled with little Post-It tags: