I’ve been meaning to post this for a few days, but since I’ve been a little busy…

I was very excited last week to check on the plants in the greenhouse and find vegetable sprouts! It’s completely fascinating to me that these teeny-tiny seeds I planted a few weeks ago have put forth these tiny seedlings which will eventually turn into food for our family.  I don’t think I’ll ever tire of the growing process.

I’m pleased to report that I have 100% germination on both the Caraflex Cabbage and the Green Goliath Broccoli.

I planted ten cabbage seeds and have ten seedlings, and I planted five of the broccoli seeds.  Let me tell you about this broccoli.  The seed packet itself is over two years old, and the fact that I still am experiencing 100% germination tells you something about seeds.  Mainly, they keep.  I haven’t done anything special to them, I just put them in a rubbermaid container, and that container itself has been hiding in the closet above the washer and dryer.  Now, I really debated buying new broccoli seeds this year, as I’d love to find a more compact variety for my square foot garden.  But I decided that I would try my old seed first, see how it takes, and then buy new if I didn’t get results.  Well, I sure did get results!

The onions are also coming along slowly.  These are Red of Florence, and I really didn’t have good luck with them last year.  They never really bulbed out before it got cold, so I thought I would simply try starting them earlier this year.  What is very interesting here is that I have read in more than one place that onion seed is not always viable from year to year- it goes bad quickly.  Well, it will be a few weeks yet before I’ll say that they’re done sprouting, but so far we are at least at 50% germination.  I’ll be keeping an eye on them, that’s for sure.

This next weekend, more seeds will be started.  I’m just going to run out of places to put them pretty soon.