The glum view from my office window this a.m. is anything but springy. But on my sill, Giant Zinnia seeds, planted 4 days ago, are sprouting in their 36 cell Burpee Greenhouse Kit. Next to the greenhouse, for comparison, a recycled salad container, covered with plastic wrap containing chive seeds.
(above, greenhouse top removed for photo)Burpee is sponsoring Ellen and my class in seed-starting on 3/28 and I wanted to try their system as I'm more frequently using something like this...
which works fine but I must punch drainage holes in the bottom and steal a tray from my toaster-oven to catch the runoff. Also I need fresh seed starting soil-less mix and last Sunday when I wanted to plant, my only bag of mix was behind the frozen doors of my rooftop shed. I actually recycled some used mix I had in the apartment for the chives (BAD GIRL!), because I'm lazy and the Jets were playing the Steelers in the AFC final.I've never used anything as complete as the Burpee Greenhouse Kit with the bottom watering try, seed tray, germination cover, plant marker and growing cubes (which are compressed round pellets until reconstituted with water). I was a little skeptical about the need, but I was ecstatic to have it ready to go with everything complete, instead of running around the city gathering supplies, and I'm thrilled with the speed of germination.
Below, Burpee's lavender, Lavandula 'Lavender Lady' grown from seed at my flower & herb farm. I learned that even when my seedlings don't look like the picture books, they'll catch up and be successful.
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4 comments:
The skeptic in me wants to know how did anyone plant seeds before it came sterilized and packaged in plastic bags. I have plenty of good dirty dirt right outside. Why buy? PS: I do use good seed starting mix I buy new every year just like all the instructions say.
That Burpee kit looks pretty cool! Looking forward to see how the seedlings do in there.
Wow! Makes me want to start some seeds!
Gert,whoa girl. I started these so we would have something for show and tell four our class at the end of March. Mid-March is plenty early to start most seeds for NYC.
Took the lid off the greenhouse kit yesterday because the leaves reached the roof.
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