• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer
Home Garden Joy
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Start Here
    • Seed Starting
    • Composting Basics
    • Vegetable Gardening
    • Growing Fruit
    • Growing Herbs
  • Recipes
    • Canning and Food Preservation
    • Vegetarian Meals
    • Salad Recipes
    • Soup Recipes
    • Dinner Recipes
    • Dessert Recipes
  • Books & Classes
    • Classes
    • Books
    • Books for Christian Herbalists
  • About
    • Advertise
    • Awards and Accolades
    • Privacy Policy

Seed Starting Update

March 16, 2017 by Jeanne

seed starting

Since the unusually cold weather has kept me indoors again, I thought I’d share a brief seed starting update.

By now, I’m usually out in the garden, “planting my peas on St. Patrick’s Day” and getting the new trellis system installed.  But the cold – the cold! UGH! It’s been going into the low 20s at night and yesterday, the temperatures reached the mid-40s. This is January weather here in south central Virginia, not March weather!

Hopefully, by this weekend, the weather will warm up again. We are expecting a little bit more seasonal weather and I’m planning on planting those peas, as well as lettuce and radishes.

In the meantime, my seed starting update is positive.

The tomato seedlings are growing like crazy! I had an old package of “Early Girl” tomato seeds and decided to plant some just to see if they would grow. While older, opened packages of seeds often fail to germinate, not only did these seeds germinate but they seem healthy and vigorous. If I can only figure out how to keep the crows from eating the ripe tomatoes this year, I should have a good harvest.

seed starting update

Last year, I purchased clary sage seeds from Select Seeds. I grew about six or seven plants and gave a few away to friends who love herbs as much as I do. Six plants remain in my garden beds. To my surprise, those growing in the most neglected of the flower gardens – hot, dry, and without supplemental watering – grew the best. Any plant that thrives on neglect finds a place in my garden. I decided to plant the remaining seeds and see what germinated. So far we have about four more plants but it’s early days yet. I am hoping for more clary sage seedlings.

seed starting

Can you see the tiniest little seed starting project above? Those tiny little plants are about the size of a grain of rice or smaller. This is St. John’s Wort. I purchased the seeds from Strictly Medicinal Seeds and plan to grow this beautiful, useful perennial both for the yellow flowers and for its medicinal properties. Although St. Johns Wort has received much attention as an antidepressant, the flowers can be made into a useful antibacterial/antimicrobial salve and tincture.

My brother photographed mature St. Johns Wort plants in Maine and they were so beautiful I decided to add the plant to my own garden this year. This will go in the new perennial garden area we cleared this winter. The flowers remaining in that garden are all yellow, and I plan on a yellow and blue theme with St. Johns Wort, daylilies, and irises as the yellows and plenty of salvia and sage for the blue-colored flowers.

seed starting

Here’s a picture of this year’s seed starting tower in my basement. The plants on the bottom shelves are just a few African violets that have been repotted or need repotting. African violets love fluorescent lights and will frequently produce buds and flowers if you move them under brighter lights. I am growing these violets for the Heart of Virginia Master Gardener plant sale this spring, so by May, I hope they are nicely greened up and blooming.

That’s all that’s happening here at Seven Oaks Farm. I had hoped to get outside and put up that new trellis system but it will have to wait until it is warmer out. I hope your seed starting projects are going well. Happy gardening, and keep growing!

Jeanne
Jeanne

Jeanne Grunert is a certified Virginia Master Gardener and the author of several gardening books. Her garden articles, photographs, and interviews have been featured in The Herb Companion, Virginia Gardener, and Cultivate, the magazine of the National Farm Bureau. She is the founder of The Christian Herbalists group and a popular local lecturer on culinary herbs and herbs for health, raised bed gardening, and horticulture therapy.

Tweet
Share
Pin
Share
0 Shares

Filed Under: Seed Starting Tagged With: seed starting

Previous Post: « Garden Update: Seed Starting, Orchard Worries and More
Next Post: Are Tulips Annuals or Perennials? »

Primary Sidebar

Let’s Connect!

  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
  • RSS
  • YouTube

Featured

logo of the american horticulture society

Home Garden Joy was featured by the American Horticultural Society on #plantchat.

My Books on Amazon

cover of plan and build a raised bed garden

Visit my author page on Amazon to find all of my fiction and gardening books.

Herbal Academy Teachers

Footer

a browned overcooked coconut bar on a blue flowered plate

Recipe Fail – Coconut Bars

Each weekend, I dig out my favorite cookbook – the Fannie Farmer Cookbook, 13th Edition. I flip through the pages, skimming the recipes, checking to see if I have the ingredients to make those that catch my eye. And then, I make the recipe, usually late Sunday afternoon after all the chores are done. It’s…

Read More

peach tree cuttings in a pot on a windowsill

Propagating Peach Trees from Softwood Cuttings

We decided that propagating peach trees from softwood cuttings was the way to go when we couldn’t find the variety we wanted at the store this past week. The best eating peach we’ve ever grown here at Seven Oaks Farm is “Red Haven.” It was recommended by our neighbor, a man whose family has farmed…

Read More

soul in a yellow mug against pine panelling

Made From Scratch Chicken Vegetable Soup Recipe

This is the best made-from-scratch chicken vegetable soup recipe you’ll ever taste. It’s a favorite of my family and I’m betting it will quickly become a favorite of your family’s, too. As part of my ongoing quest to test and taste every recipe in the Fannie Farmer Cookbook 100th Edition, I’ve made the Vegetable Soup…

Read More

A loaf of bread on a plate

Water Bread – Recipe Review

Once you make water bread, you’ll never eat store bought white bread again. In fact, you won’t be able to look at a loaf of “white bread” from the market and consider it bread, in any sense of the word, after you’ve taken a bite of the real thing. Hot. Crunchy crust. Tender, flaky, soft…

Read More

Copyright © 2022 Home Garden Joy on the Foodie Pro Theme