Baby photos
Why
do gardeners start so many seedlings indoors when the plants nearly
always do just as well when planted in a cold frame or simply
direct-seeded after the last frost? My best guess is that the
same antsiness I feel as the days get longer affects everyone else
too. Starting some alpine
strawberries this
winter has been a good way to feed the ache without going nuts with
grow lights and flats.
It took two solid weeks
for my strawberries to germinate, but this weekend I noticed the first
tiny specks of white as roots started digging into the stump dirt.
Monday, the cotyledons began to unfurl from 
the
seed coats, and Wednesday the flat was full of tiny green leaves, each
one heavy with a drop of dew. I guess it's nearly time to take
the lid off and let them start growing!
We're due to start some
plants outside this week, too, if the ground thaws out. People
around here traditionally plant their first peas on Valentine's Day ---
it's a crap shoot, but in the years when the early peas grow, everyone
who bowed out is jealous. I'll also be tossing out some poppy
seeds, some for us to eat and some just for the bees.
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About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
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