What seeds are you starting?

While it is still a little early for myself, for many folks it may be time to start thinking about seed starting for the year.

Personally, I've caught the itch. I had to start something so I started digging through my seed packets to try and find something that has a chance of surviving and thriving.

I settled on starting rhubarb, I had two separate varieties I intended on starting, which will take a while to develop and I have the capability of repotting as it grows.



I have started 'Allport' rhubarb and "Glaskin's Perpetual" rhubarb from seed with confirmed germination! I'm excited to see what I can do with them in the future.

What are you starting?

I'm in Northern Indiana and just yesterday moved my persimmon and pawpaw seeds from the refrigerator to a heated cooler. I always seem to start my annuals too early as in the middle of winter I'm anxious to get ready for spring. I'm trying to avoid that this year so in about a month or two I'll probably start some tomatoes and lettuce.

I still have three more months of winter. I'm only just starting to organize my seeds.

Here in North Texas, I just started my tomato and pepper seeds indoors. I’m trying out Lemon Drop Ahi peppers this year and I’m excited to see how they do. Now that it’s February, I can start direct sowing a lot of cool season vegetables as well.

I had picked up a bunch of seeds from the Experimental Farm Network. ( y'all are a bunch of enablers) So now I have: 3 types of perennial onions and 1 annual type, maypop, skirret, parsley, celeriac, goji and 2 types of raspberry seeds going. Along with 4 seeds of a medicinal plant that I'm trying for the first time.
The goji and raspberries are a bit questionable since I took them in the rush of our pre-move.

I also have put sweet potatoes in soil to get them going on slip starts.

In another week or 2, I'll have to get aspargus, tomatoes and the perennial potatoes underway along with a couple of peppers. Also have to get my winter sowing pots out since I got a bunch of native wildflowers at our local seed swap this past week.

Oooh! I answered a week ago that it's still too wintery, but Dian's post reminded me I have some perennial seeds from EFN that'll need stratification. I'll get them into some cold vermiculite this afternoon!

The itch to sow SOMETHING...

I stuck the following seeds into old potting soil and into a 'mini greenhouse' by the windowsill: bell peppers (we call it paprika), peppers and aubergine.
In a short week I'll be looking at sowing tomatoes.
The healing herbs and 'odd stuff' that needs a cold snap to germinate went into their pots outside in November, December and January.

The only ones I've actually sown yet, just today, are a few monkey puzzle (Araucaria araucana) nuts. Other than that, I have some things currently stratifying:

-Rubus chingii var. suavissimus, Chinese sweet tea or sweetleaf raspberry
-Juglans cinerea and J. ailanthifolia, butternuts (American and Asian)
-Morus alba, white mulberry
-Celtis occidentalis, hackberry
-Forsythia suspensa, weeping forsythia
-Myrica pensylvanica, northern bayberry

I probably forgot some. Also plan to start true potato seeds at some point.

We're 11 weeks from last frost here. I'm starting onion seeds this weekend. My youngest daughter (8yo) wants a garden of her own, I'm trying my best to hold her off for a couple more weeks. She saw that the tomato seed packets have probably 100 seeds each in them, and wants to plant every single seed. I guess enthusiasm is a good thing.

I'm doing lettuces right now, and getting ready for tomatoes, probably next weekend.  I also just sowed seeds from a Persian sweet lemon from fruit from a friend's tree.

Last year I grew some tomatoes bred by Kanti Agarwal and Steve Peters of Seed Revolution Now - you can get a few of their varieties via Adaptive seed in Oregon - and they were super successful.

Bred specifically for California with our dry climate and wide temperature swings from day to night (both things that tomatoes generally don't like), they're the best tomatoes I've grown here in the Bay Area.

I've also got rhubarb going!  Mine have about 4 or 5 true leaves already.  They're  "success"and "ebony" from French Harvest Rhubarb Seed in Australia.  Germination was fast and easy.  "Success" is the one Californians rave about - it can take more heat than typical for rhubarb and seems to be very vigorous.  "Ebony" has beautiful dark stalks, and may or may not like my climate.  But it was so pretty I decided to take a risk!