Grow Lettuce Grow: finally.... started some seeds

after reading about how some of my previous potting ingredients, like peat moss and vermiculite, weren't so great for the environment, i needed to find a better soilless recipe for my seed starting. i decided to go with a mixture of compost for nutrients, (not the mushroom compost, cause that stuff is pretty strong and extremely smelly), and builders sand to help keep the compost light and airy (and not play area sand, cause that will clump up). i didn't add anything to retain moisture, so i'll have to be pretty good about spraying the seeds a couple of times everyday with water to keep them from drying out. first up on the to do list was to make a potting mixture of about 3 parts compost to 1 part builder's sand which will go in the bottom 2/3 of the pots.

i then made a separate mixture of equal parts compost and sand to go directly below the seeds and just over the top. you wanna make sure to continually give your seeds water while keeping the soil above them moist and loose so the little guys can break though the surface when the time comes.

and then, get to planting!! right now i am starting some seeds in terra cotta pots till i can get some little homemade newspaper pots started. i had some local publications printed on newsprint i could have used, but they have lots of colored pictures. most everything i've read says to only use black and white news print, and since no one is calling me back to tell me whether or not their color ink is soy based, i'm gonna play it safe. which means i need to head out and russel me up some used newspapers.

a little bowl with what will hopefully be some awesome radish microgreens.

since it is still way to cold down in the basement, i had to bring my seedling pots upstairs. good thing hubby doesn't mind pots of funky soil all around the house. below are three varieties of peppers that i've grown before. last year i had a hard time getting them to sprout. pepper seeds need warmth to get started, but once i found a really warm spot in the old house, everything went great. a lot of folks will put them on top of the frig to keep them warm. i don't think that will work in this house since the kitchen is one of the coldest rooms and the frig is right next to a really cold window. so i am trying them out in the dinning room next to the best heat vent i got. we'll see how that works in a week or two.