Gardeners' Holidays 2023: Festival of Seeds

Although February 2 is the first Gardeners' Holiday of the year, there's usually not much going on in the actual garden at that time. Last year's crops are long gone by then, and it's far too early to start putting any of this year's into the ground. So this Gardeners' Holiday is usually devoted more to planning ahead for the coming season: laying out the garden plot, pruning the plum trees, and starting our first seeds indoors, which generally means the parsley. 

But this year is a little different. This year, the parsley seeds we bought from Botanical Interests (the new seed supplier we chose to replace Fedco) specifically said on the packet that starting them indoors was not recommended. (The preferred procedure is to direct sow them once soil temperatures are over 50 degrees, soaking them in water for 24 hours first to aid germination.) But we do have one crop that's not only already started, but already starting to come up: our new strawberry plants. 

When I bought these, I assumed that we'd simply be sowing them directly outdoors and hoping they would take root in our rich, dense soil. But the instructions on the packet said it's actually preferable to start them indoors, and to do it really early—14 to 16 weeks before the last expected frost. Around here, that means mid-January, when the ground is generally frozen solid. So our usual procedure of starting the seeds in tubes with a layer of seed-starting mix over a layer of garden soil wasn't going to work. 

Fortunately, we happened to have an alternative seed starting system available. One Christmas, we forget exactly when, someone had given us a "cell greenhouse kit": a tray with 36 individual cups, 36 pellets of coir, and a clear plastic lid. The idea is that you just put the pellets in the cups and add water, and they swell up to fill the entire space. You can then push your seeds straight into this growth medium and cover the whole thing up with the lid. It will keep the seeds warm and moist, and when the seedlings start to come up, it will let in light to nourish them.

In real life, this did not work exactly as described. Perhaps the kit had been left sitting for too long and the pellets had dried out too much, but when watered, they did not expand nearly as much as the directions said they would. They absorbed some water, sure, but they only went from being little dry cylinders to slightly bigger wet cylinders. Brian eventually had to break up the coir with a fork and then add a little seed-starting mix on top to fill the receptacles. Then he sprinkled a couple of the tiny little strawberry seeds into each individual nook, misted them thoroughly with water, covered them up, and put them on top of the fridge. (The instructions for the strawberries said it's best to keep the seeds in a warm spot out of direct sunlight initially and only move them into the sunshine when they start to emerge.)

That was roughly two weeks ago, and here's what we have now: tiny little shoots poking up out of the dirt (or dirt substitute). They're much too small at this point to look anything like actual strawberry plants, but they are real, live, green plants growing in our home in the dead of winter. It may be 24 degrees outside with a brisk wind blowing; the outdoor landscape may be entirely dormant, without a trace of green anywhere. But here, in the sunny window in our guest room (which is also our conservatory, or the closest thing we have to one), the gardening season has already begun.