YAY seeds!

Feeling pretty good about seeds.
Had a HUGE stock of all sorts of random stuff I knew I was never going to use (like I need a dozen varieties of tomatoes?) so I cleaned up the seed stock to what I will use and shipped off the rest to a friend of mine who is also an avid gardener... I told her to please feel free to keep on sharing what I sent her. It was a ziploc bag that neatly filled the smallest of the free/fixed shipping Post Office boxes, and I am sure they will all have good homes to grow in.

So, I now also have planned out where almost all of the seed I still have is going to go in the yard. Still have a handful that I'm not too sure where it's going yet, but I will figure it out. 

Still have a smidge of seed leftover that I know I will not be using this year, but I'm still holding onto it for future growing.

Got a some IDGAF seed too. What's IDGAF? I don't give an eff where it goes. Quite likely it will be my scatter seed for the fenceline of the firepit sanctuary like I did with my rousing failure if IDGAF extra bean seed last year. Hey, if it takes, wonderful, if it don't I don't care.

And ooohhh, wag my tail, I put in my seed order today. Geez, why did I need to order seed if I had so much I gave a third of my stock away? Because I had some missing. Corn (which is a requirement for the three sisters garden), spinach, mixed hot peppers, brussel sprouts, some medicinal herbs, kale. I decided to skip the creeping thyme this time in favor of going with Richters for better suited thyme in the future. Got a sprout mix that has yellow peas in it because it's almost impossible to find yellow peas on their own, and I do like to mix green and yellow for soup. It also has green peas, red and green lentils, and chickpeas too, which is very nice. Decided to pick up a gourd mix too- may not grow them this year since I know I will be growing luffa this year, but decided the time was now to pick those up.

Coming soon will be my seed removal from the ghost peppers I was so thoughtfully sent from a dear friend of mine. He sent them semi fresh, and I lost a couple of them because I wasn't careful enough with drying, but there is still plenty there for me to deseed and grind.. HAHA, now I just need to be VERY VERY careful about how I do it since they are the deadliest peppers on the planet. I'm thinking of doing a "sealed pulverization" of a tiny mortar and pestal I don't use inside a gallon ziploc.  I will be reporting back on that one.

Most exciting... Our first hydroponic trial starts today. We had a complete failure of Tom Thumb pea in the past, but I think it's because it was a half-assed effort. Today we started three each of Disoy soybean, and edamame type that grows small, and Coco Noir bean, a dwarf bush drying type of bean.
It starts by sprouting them sandwiched between wet paper towels that are encased in a pair of plates (now available to recycle since we got a lovely eight place setting set of dinnerware as a housewarming from one of our moms) to help keep them moist.. Then once sprouted they will go into the baby grower, then on to the adult system. If they fail, I will try another two trials before moving on, and the rest of the seed will go to the garden instead. If they succeed the next trials are going to be a miniature tomato and eggplant. Or maybe cucumber instead of eggplant. Got a decent handful of other seed to try out as well.

For other seed starting, we now have over a dozen styrofoam egg cartons saved for small starts, and a promise from my mom and sister to save their cardboard cartons. Might not be much, but it is a few bucks worth of planting supplies I was able to recycle and keep out of landfills instead of spending at the gardening store. Why buy when you get it free with every egg purchase? I do kind of wish I had at least another person or two that I knew would save cartons for me, but ah well.
I've also learned the "secret" to making paper pots out of newspaper, and I got a couple of wine bottles already cleaned and set aside for the purpose.  Those will be for seed starts too big for egg cartons, like tomatoes and peppers. Better to just start them in the bigger pots right from the start.
Got a nice handful of larger soup and tomato product cans for doing up lettuce and herb starts this year too.

Unfortunately, I will have to buy seed starting soil this year... The compost pile simply isn't up to snuff to provide yet. But with any luck and effort, I will be using all homemade seed starter next year. Considering that the pond was created by digging out a peat bog, I've been putting in some serious consideration to some dredging of the future dock area for good soil amendment. I know the area needs to be cleaned up, and what the heck else am I going to do with the dredgings?

Still have a few weeks before seed starting for the garden starts and I am chomping at the bit to do it. Mayhaps I will broadcast some of that plantain seed to appease myself, lol.