The first seeds to go in this year in the indoor grow room are these lovely warm weather plants. My family enjoys a lot of tomato based products so that's the biggest crop by far. This year: four different tomatoes: Beefsteak bush variety, Roma, Pink Ponderosa and Candyland cherry tomatoes, three different peppers: Sweet Romano, Jalapeno and Cayenne, and new to the garden this year, Ground Cherries. I'm looking to plant more perennials for repeat performances year after year, and these lovely little fruits caught my attention.
Over the last few years, I've set up these same types of shelves in my dining room to start my seeds. While that worked just fine, I really didn't want an indoor seed-starting station in my dining room so this year I decided to scope out the least trafficked area of the house, and the back corner of the laundry room fit the bill perfectly. Almost zero traffic and right between 2 different electrical outlets to handle the heat mats, fans and lighting, as well as in the same room with a sink for daily watering. I only had to move 2 things and voila, an entire corner of the room, ready for seed starting. I have some big ideas for this space to make it even more effecient so hopefully I can pull that off over the off season after these plants go out into the garden. The empty shelf on the bottom left will be filled with a tray of Yellow Wonder Alpine strawberry seeds. Rumor has it, they're sweeter than red strawberries and taste like a combination of strawberry, pineapple, and rose. I'm really looking forward to these berries!
Most of this batch of seeds will be direct sown into the dirt once the threat of frost has passed, which is generally around mid-May but can fluctuate a couple of weeks either way. Lots more herbs this year, and lots more pretty flowers. I'd prepped a new growing area last year for herbs and flowers but by the time it was done the best window had passed for planting from seed so I'm really looking forward to that project finally taking off this spring. This year I'll be directly sowing my pickling cucumbers instead of starting them indoors, and seeing what a difference that makes. I've always started them indoors but I'm out of room this year so they're getting direct sown. I'm also growing a very small number of zucchini plants in raised beds, so those will be started indoors in the next few weeks.