I’m finally able to start gardening! I took a flex day on midwinter day (also known as Imbolc, Candlemas, and most familiarly, Groundhog day), and since the kids also had a snow day, my daughter and I drove to Lowes and Home Depot to pick up seed trays, seedling-starting soil, and a shop light for when the seedlings emerge and need light. I bought a large rectangular Gladware container that will eventually be good for storing cupcakes, but for now I am using it to hold the seed pots so I can refrigerate them. I also ordered more seeds 😬.

After making some midwinter cutout cookies with the kids, I started the first round of seeds, which need to be started indoors 10-12 weeks before our average last frost date (April 29 in our area).

Little Bluestem grass

• Poured dry soil into the Gladware container, then wet it using the sink sprayer. Stirred it until the soil was evenly damp, then spooned the moist soil into plantable pots.
• Sowed 4 seeds in each of 12 plantable pots that came with our seed starter tray: dropped 1 seed in each corner of each pot, then poked them in with a cake pop stick.

• Pressed soil down to make sure seeds were not in air pockets and were in contact with damp soil
• Squirted the top of each pot  with a spray bottle
• Placed in large rectangular plastic container and snapped all but one corner of the lid to keep moisture in but not make it air-tight.
• Put container in fridge.
• Need to stay in fridge 3-6 weeks, and must remain moist.

Violas (Johnny Jump-up) Inside

• Used the damp soil mixture from above and a six-pack recycled paper board egg carton (hopefully plantable) to plant seeds.
• I used the egg carton, with the carton lid, to provide the seeds with darkness, which they need to germinate.
• Viola seeds were tiny. I scattered them over damp soil in the egg carton, probably 5-7 seeds per pot.
• Tamped soil, sprayed with water to make sure soil was wet through with no air pockets around the seeds, then closed the carton lid and placed them in the plastic container with the Bluestem seeds.

Violas (Johnny Jump-up) Outside

• We’ve got snow and rain due tomorrow, and since these are early spring bloomers that need cold before sprouting, I figured I’d go ahead and scatter the rest of the seeds outside where I want them to grow (under the tree at the top of the back hill) and see if they emerge in spring.
• The ground is not frozen, at least at the surface, and I loosened the top 1/2 inch of soil in about seven 8″ patches.
• I sprinkled 5-7 seeds in each disk, then covered them with soil and tamped it down. The soil was moist.
• I did not water the seeds in. It’s supposed to snow, then rain, then freeze tomorrow, so we’ll see if this works.
• Seedlings are supposed to emerge in 12-25 days at 65℉, then bloom 90-100 days later.