Fish and Poop!

Yep!  That's really what it's called.  This is my new favorite organic fertilizer.  I purchased it here.  It's great for the vegetable garden, in-ground non-edibles, and potted plants.  Do not be deceived by the lovely rose on the front.  And don't do what I did, which is remove the cap, put it to my nose, and take a big whiff.  Seriously, DON'T DO IT!  I can't believe I didn't drop the bottle when I did it, honestly.  I am not exaggerating:  this is the worst smell I have EVER smelled!  Now, before you go thinking it can't be that bad, remember that I am a mother . . . of 3 kids.  So, I've smelled some pretty atrocious things in my time.  (I'll spare you a list.)  

The bottle says to apply once a month.  For my garden veggies, I like to apply it for the first time when plants have developed their first true leaves and then again when flowering.  After that, monthly seems like a good plan.

I recently applied some Fish and Poop to the strawberry plants.  Look how many berries are in this bunch!  So exciting!

Oh, and as a lagniappe photo, I thought I'd include this one of my pink azaleas.  When I first put these in about 4 years ago, they were diseased.  So, we've nursed them back to health, and this is the first year they've bloomed.  They're a little spindly, but I'm just glad to see they're making a comeback!

Creeping Phlox

This lovely purple stuff lining our walkway to the front door is called Creeping Phlox.  I've had several people ask me about it lately, so I thought I'd do a little post to share about it. 

It's definitely called "creeping" for a reason.   All of the Phlox pictured here came from 4  6" pots (just like the one pictured below) planted a few years back.  Over time, I've trimmed it back countless times and transplanted portions of it to create a continuous border.  I love how it cascades over the little rock wall.

I found this Fort Hill version at Home Depot and snapped a pic because they do offer another variety as well.  However, the other variety seemed to be more vertical and probably wouldn't drape over the wall as well.  This Fort Hill is what I have planted.

Love my Flower Pots!

I've devoted several blog posts to the edibles in our backyard/grow room but haven't mentioned much about the other fun stuff.  I now keep all my flower beds filled with perennials.  That's just much easier for me.  But, I do still fill lots of pots with fun annuals.  I so look forward to this trip to the garden center each year!  Little boy accompanied me and pointed out his favorites as we carefully planned our purchases.

And Girl 2 helped me with the potting.  She mostly enjoyed getting dirty and wet, but she also asked a lot of questions about what things are called and why we were grouping them together and such.  It was a lot of fun to have her working alongside me.

This is our pot we made for the front porch this year.  It has some of my favorites from our trip to the garden center.  Because I am going minimal and only having one pot on the front porch this year, I wanted to put some of the things with the biggest impact in this pot.

Here's what it contains.  The Cordyline is the tall, spiky plant.  It is perennial, so it should be reuseable from year to year.  I love the foliage of the New Guinea Impatiens.  The green of the Margarita Sweet Potato Vine is always a favorite of mine.  And, we threw in some classic impatiens as well (because I know from years past that they love this particular spot on the porch).

And, yes, I do realize that I've mixed Sun plants with Shade plants. I've done it in the past and things have gone fine for my pots.  Am I sure that these combinations will be great in the locations I've put them in?  Absolutely not.  But, I think the only thing that you can be sure of in gardening is that you will learn.  So, I've kept a log of what I've planted where and will keep up with its success or failure and use that info to guide my decisions for future pottings.

I love this little grouping on the back porch.  It's hard to see in this pic because it's set against the green of the grass, but the tall, purple-flowered plant in the largest planter is a real show-stopper.  It's called Senorita Rosality and is a version of the Spider Flower.  Also, in the big planter, the lime green color of this "tickly plant," as my little helper called it, is mimicked by the sweet potato vine in the bottom left pot.  And all three pots have a plant or two of red verbena to visually unify the grouping.

Some plants from the big planter.

The smaller left planter.

The smaller right planter.  I love Dusty Miller.  It's just such a different shade than all the other foliage.  It really creates contrast.

Also in these pots are some perennial grasses transplanted from last year's pots and some ivy that I grow in-ground in the front yard to use in pots each year.

Ahhhh, sweet lavender!  I absolutely love the smell of lavender.  If my little boy was much older, he probably would have been embarrassed by how many times I just kept picking it up out of my cart at the garden center and smelling it.  This plant smells so strongly that when I had it sitting in the garage when I got back from the garden center, one of my kids asked what that smell was as soon as she'd walked into the room. 

I placed this pot next to my double-chaise (my most favorite place to sit ever!) so that I can enjoy it's lovely fragrance as I relax. (Yes, I do relax sometimes. :)

I apparently didn't take a picture of its contents, but it's just the large lavender plant, some Impatiens, and a Dusty Miller. 

If you can't tell, I'm into height this year for my pots.  This pot gets its height from the Red Riding Hood grass.  My helper then added Dusty Miller and Imptiens in a pattern of "flowers then leaves, flowers then leaves" all around the edge of the pot.

The three plants in the pot.  I hope this grass does well because I love its purple color.

This pot was nearly full of things that had survived from last year.  So, in hopes that it would do the same again this year, I just added the Lilyturf (which is also perennial) for height (of course ;).  Oh, and we threw in one Impatiens that we had leftover after we'd done all other pots.

Lilyturf used in this pot.  I love the variegated shoots.

Not pictured, I always hang ferns from the front porch.  I love the way they swing in the spring breezes.  And, we potted another hanging basket for the back porch that's just full of pink begonias.

We had a few Begonias left, so I rewarded my helper with her very own hanging basket that she hung from the playhouse.  :)

A Birthday Rose

It's April Fool's Day today, so be sure to short-sheet your kids' beds or put food coloring in their milk or something else fun today.  They'll love you for it. 

But April 1st is special for another reason.  It's my mother's birthday.  And she's the greatest around -- that's no April Fool's joke. ;)

So, for her birthday, I thought I'd post this pic of the first rose of the season at our house.  After all, it was my mom who helped me pick out these Knockout roses years ago and put them in the ground with me. 

By the looks of the rose bushes this year, this rose won't be alone long.  The shrubs are covered with buds.  But for now, this one is stealing the show. 

So, Mom, though you aren't here to smell it, this rose is for you.  I hope you have a wonderful day.  I love you.

DIY Herbicide

Roundup, oh, Roundup, how terrible are you for our environment?  Let me count the ways.  (Actually, I'm not going to preach right now about the importance of avoiding Roundup, but if you're interested, pick up the April issue of Mother Earth News and read the article about the Genetically Modified Seeds and Roundup Resistant crops and why they're bad news bears. 

Anyway, we wanted our weeds growing in sidewalk cracks to meet a more earth-friendly demise this year, so we concocted some of our own herbicide spray.  WARNING:  do not spray this in your garden.  It is not desciminating and will kill everything green in its path.  This makes it a great option, though, for sidewalk cracks and edging. 

Get ready.  The recipe is very difficult.  Got your paper ready?  (Are you sensing the sarcasm yet?)

The concoction is just equal parts dish soap, salt, and white vinegar.

We just mixed it all together,  but the salt took awhile to dissolve.  When we make it next time, I will heat the vinegar on the stove before adding the salt. I think that would help it dissolve faster.

Then, add to a spray bottle (for small jobs) or a sprayer (for larger jobs) and say goodbye to those stubborn weeds.

Hori hori!

My thoughtful husband gave me a hori hori for our anniversary!  What?  You've never heard of a hori hori?  Well, let me fill you in.  By the end of this post, you'll be wondering why your significant other has never thought to give you such an amazing gift!

Featured in the March/ April issue of Hobby Farms, a hori hori is "one of the most versatile tools a gardener can possess."  In Japanese, hori means "dig," so I'd say it's aptly named.  According to the article, the hori hori can be used for "dividing perennials, slicing tree and shrub roots, prying rocks, hacking open plastic bedding bales, and more." 

More expensive versions are sold on Burpee's website, but my hubby was able to find one made by Fiskars at Wal-mart for much cheaper.  Apparently, they don't know what it's called, though, so it's on the shelf as a "Multi-Purpose Planting Tool."  According to the tag, it's features include  . . .
-- a trowel blade for planting
-- a serrated edge for digging and cutting
-- a forked tip for weeding
--a large, soft grip for added comfort and control

I'm sold!  I haven't had opportunity to use it yet, as I just unwrapped it, but I am already having visions of myself wielding it wildly in the garden, ripping open mulch bags, and unleashing my fury on those weeds that dare creep into my garden beds!

Garden Update

Several early spring veggies have now been planted out in the garden, including spinach, lettuce, Swiss Chard, carrots, radishes, and more.  Also, these sweet potato vines have just been added.  To see how these beauties began, click here.

Also, the strawberry beds are really greening up and looking great.

Oops!  I took the kids away for a few days over spring break and came home to find asparagus stalks 3 feet talld!  Oh, well.  There do seem to be some more new ones coming up that we'll be able to enjoy soon -- probably tomorrow, as fast as they grow.  :)

Onions, Take Two!

Look closely.  Can you make out anything green?  This is what my onion transplants looked like as soon as they were moved outside.  It wasn't looking good.  By the next morning, there were no signs of life. 

Thankfully, we happened upon these little beauties on a recent excursion to the Mountain View Co-op (which is very nice and has a great garden center!).  They are purple onions, which is what I use in my onion soup recipe. 

My little helper and I uprooted the evidence of our previous attempt and planted these little babies in their place.

So far, they look great.  We'll see.  If they grow much taller, we'll cut them down a bit to stunt their growth and encourage them to begin developing their yummy, bulbous roots.

Oh, and we added some of this to the soil.  Thank you, Cocoa Puff!

I had a little blip in my garden planning calendar.  When I mapped everything out, denoting when things were to be started indoors, hardened off, and planted outside, I forgot to make a note to remind myself to harden off the onions.  So, planting day came and they hadn't been hardened off, but I was so eager to get them in the ground that I foolishly went forward with planting.  I'm not sure that was what killed the little rascals, but it couldn't have helped.

Lesson learned.  (I wonder how many times I'll say that this garden season :)  So, here's my tub of lettuce that I've been hardening off this week by carrying them outside for incrementally longer periods of time each day. 

Mulch!

I never would've thought we'd ever buy mulch by the truckload, but this is actually our second load in the past 2 weeks!  Of course, we used a lot of it filling in around the new garden boxes, but I've also done all the weeding, trimming, and mulching of all the other flower beds, including the asparagus and strawberry patches.  Also, we took our local nursery owner's advice and planted azaleas under our giant pine tree.  The fallen needles make the soil under the tree highly acidic, which is what azaleas like, so we'll see how it goes.  In the past 5 years, I've tried various things under that tree and everything thus far has failed.  Fingers crossed we may have finally found a solution!

First Test of Soil Drainage

Today we had our first major downpour since the installation of our garden boxes.  I'd read that our soil mix would drain well, but this was the first test.  We've had so much rain that the boxes almost look like they're floating in the yard, but the soil isn't washing out  and the boxes don't seem to be filling up with water.  Yea!

Quick and Cheap Grow Light

We just added another grow light to the guest room, so I thought I'd fill you in on what we did.  We bought a shoplight from Home Depot.

This light holds two flourescent bulbs and can be suspended from the ceiling. 

For our setup, I just spread a tarp out on the bed in the guest room, placed plants in under-the-bed storage boxes, and hung the lights from the ceiling.

Cost analysis?

Shoplight     $19.97

Bulbs            $9.47

Chain/hooks $7.00

Total= $36.44

Seems a small price to pay for the ability to extend our growing season by months!

Also, here's an update on the sweet potatoes.  I transferred the plants that had sprouted roots to their own pots.  I really only plan on having about 4 plants in the garden, but I've decided to take advantage of having extras and use them as ornamental vines for my pots.

Aphids, Spider Mites, and Whiteflies, Oh My!

I know this is not even close to the biggest garden problem we'll run into this year.  Nevertheless, it is the first hiccup we've had, so it merits a post.  You may need a magnifying glass to even see the tiny critters, but they're creepy crawling on some of the newspaper pots in the grow room.

In fact, I haven't seen any on the plants at all, so the little bugs may just be feasting on the damp newspaper.  Regardless, out comes the trusty Vegetable Garden Problem Solver  to help identify the critters.  I'm still not sure what they are and would welcome any help with identification.  The two smallest critters listed were these two, the spider mite and the aphid.

This is a pic of the fly tape I put in the grow room to catch all the gnats.  Apparently, warm, damp soil is a veritable breeding ground for them, but the tape seems to take care of the problem.  That's not gonna do much for these little gray things, though, because they don't seem to fly.

Because I am determined to garden organically this year and not resort to Sevin dust, I was pleased to disover the Problem Solver's suggestion of Garlic Spray.  According to the book, "Claims abound for garlic's repellent effect on a wide variety of pests, including aphids, caterpillars, flea beetles, leafhoppers, leafminers flies, maggot flies, spider mites, thrips, and whiteflies. . . .Applying these sprays seems harmless, but there's evidence that garlic sprays kill some types of beneficial insects including beneficials that prey on aphids."  So, weigh your options here.  Since I don't suspect I have many beneficials on my plants right now anyway since they're indoors, I decided to go forward with the spray.  The book suggests spraying preventatively every 2 weeks. 

To make the spray, blend a quart of water with 2-6 cloves of garlic. 

Pour your mixture into a spray bottle.  At this point, you can add a few drops of liquid soap, not detergent, but this will make your spray even more likely to kill beneficial insects.  I opted to leave out the soap for now.  To apply, spray plants thoroughly, including the undersides of the leaves.  If using on plants already outside, "spray on a dry day when no rain is expected" so that garlic has a chance to dry on the plants.  Store your spray in the refrigerator, and it should last all season.

Asparagus Update

Whoopsie!  So much for harvesting spears when they reach 7-9" and are the width of a finger.  It's funny.  I feel I owe Barbara Kingsolver an apology.  When I read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, an excellent book by Kingsolver chronicling her year as a locavore (one who eats only food produced within a specified mile radius of one's home), I actually laughed aloud when she spoke of awaiting her asparagus spears in the spring.  According to Kingsolver, she had to trek out to her asparagus patch daily as the time was approaching and check the barren ground for asparagus spears.  For if she didn't check daily, she'd miss the correct cutting time for asparagus, 7-9" tall but before they begin to "fern out."  "Oh, Barbara, you're so funny!  As if they could shoot out of the ground and be ready for cutting all in one day!" I scoffed. 

Well, Mrs. Kingsolver, I would like to offer my sincerest of apologies.  I am astounded by how quickly this little spear grew to well over a foot in length.  You were right, and I was wrong to laugh.  Please forgive me. :)

Now It's Starting to Feel Like Spring!

I'm pretty sure both my children and my neighbors think I'm certifiably insane.  Today, as I pulled my car into the driveway, I thought I spotted it.  Then, I jumped out of the van and ran over to see whether it was for real.  Yes, it's for real!  I was in the house to grab the camera and back outside lying prostrate on the ground taking pictures of this glorious thing before my kids had gotten themselves and their backpacks out of the van.  The first asparagus shoot of the season!  And it's not just any season.  Our books told us not to harvest asparagus until the 3rd year to allow the root systems to grow strong.  So, for two years, we have practiced patience and let the asparagus grow wild in its little bed.  This is the first little asparagus from our yard that will actually grace our dinner table.  And, yes, I'm a bit excited about it.

Garden Boxes Complete!

There's been some progress on our garden boxes!  Earlier in the week, we mulched between the garden boxes with a truckload of mulch.  Then, this morning, we mixed up some more of our special soil mix:  peat moss, rice hulls, and compost and got the boxes all filled.  Then, it was time to lay the grid.  The grid is what gives "square foot gardening" its name.  It breaks the box down into squares and gets you to thinking in terms of boxes rather than rows.  Of course, there's a whole book on this subject, so I'll spare you all the theory behind the grid.  If you're interested, check out our link to the Square Foot Gardening book and other similar titles on our Homesteading Resources tab.

I priced wood lattice pieces at good 'ole Home Depot but decided that it would be cheaper to go another route.  We waited until JCPenney put their 2" faux wood blinds on 50% off, then ordered 2 sets of 52"x64" white blinds.  This gave us all the slats we needed to make grids for  5  4'x8' boxes (with 3 slats leftover).

First, we disassembled the wood blinds.  Then, laid them out and used tack nails to hold them in place.

For the long pieces, we joined two pieces together using zip-ties and the holes that were already in the blind slats.

Here's a completed box.

And, the garden boxes all complete.  Now, we can go plant our spinach!

Trial and Error

Meet my compost pail.  This little guy sits atop our kitchen counter, between the sink and the cutting board and holds all of our veggie scraps and other items destined for the outside compost pile.  As many of you know, we are learning this whole "homesteading" lifestyle as we go -- often from books and occasionally from conversations with others who have more experience.  However, "what type of compost pail do you recommend?" is not exactly a common soccer-field sideline topic and none of my books provided me much insight, so I'm offering you here a chance to learn from my own failure.

I bought a cannister from Wal-mart to gather our scraps.  It was cheap, holds about 3/4 gallon, and coordinates with our countertops, so I thought we were good to go.   The main problem can be seen in the top right photo (if you look very closely).  The screw in the middle of the underside of the lid is terribly rusted.  Why?  There's too much moisture in the pail.  Oh.  So, I guess it needs venitlation.  I tried leaving the lid off.  Oh.  It stinks and is a fruit fly breeding ground.

Also, how do you keep the pail from getting too nastified (is that even a real word?) in the bottom?  I tried the above method, lining the pail with a grocery store produce bag.  Suddenly, when I looked at my cute pail, carefully chosen for its coordination with my countertops, all I could see was a nasty plastic bag held in place by a rubberband.

Now, I'm doing this instead of using a bag liner, and it's working okay.  I put a handful of shredded newspaper in the bottom of the pail.  This absorbs some of the liquids and makes it easier to dump onto the pile.  I'm liking it, but there's still the rusty screw problem, so I'm still dreaming of the compost pail below.  (What?  You don't dream of compost pails?)

This little beauty (available at amazon.com -- just click on the photo to see all the product info) holds 1.5 gallons, so I wouldn't have to dump everyday.  Also, it features a charcoal filter in the lid that allows for ventilaltion but prevents odor from seeping out.  Also, it has a handle.  And handles are just, um, handy.
So, if you're considering adding a compost pail to your kitchen countertop, I hope you may be able to learn from my mistakes.  :)

War with the Roses

When we first moved in to our house, I knew our front flower beds were bad, but I was at a complete loss as to what to do about it.  Having always rented, I was never expected to maintain a yard and didn't know the difference between a Marigold and a Mayflower (I actually still don't know what a Mayflower looks like, but you get the point).  Then, my mother (who has pretty much single-handedly taught me all I know about flora) stepped in and told me that I needed Knockout Roses.  And, my, was she right!  I started out with 2 bushes and now have bushes lining the entire front of the house.  And why not?  Look at these blooms!

So, what makes them different than, say, an azalea?  Whereas Azaleas (which prefer shade) may bloom once or twice, Knockouts will bloom continuously from spring to first frost.  And, they will be COVERED in blooms, as seen above!  They've become very popular, so more people know what they are now, but when I first put mine in 6 years ago, people would pull into our driveway and ask me what they were.  (I'm not exaggerating -- this really did happen on more than one occasion.)

Once a year, however, before they begin to get their new spring growth, it's time to go to war with the roses.  I have to cut them back because they grow like crazy and, if I didn't, they'd take over the house.  So, yesterday, as it was just another beautiful 75 degree February day (?), I got out my loppers and pruned away.  Actually, prune is not really the right word.  It sounds so precise, as if I carefully calculated each little snip.  What actually happens is much more like a massacre.  It's quite cathartic, I think -- good therapy.  I just go to town on those roses, chopping and chopping until there's hardly anything left.  I've done this every year; and every year, they come back in all their glory and never seem to hold a grudge.  Here's a before picture.

And, after, from basically the same spot.  Now, don't go feeling sorry for the poor roses.  You should see my forearms.  Believe me, they got in a few blows as well.  But, after hauling three tarp-fulls of rose remains to the burn pile, it was obvious that I'd emerged from the battle as the victor.

Now, all this cutting back of roses, crape myrtles, and mums led to me to more fully appreciate a plant of a different variety.  Let's consider the hosta.  I do love my hostas for several reasons. 

1.  I transplanted them from my late mother-in-law's garden bed after she passed away.  She loved getting her hands dirty in the soil, and every time I see them come up in the spring, I am reminded of her.

2.  They love shade, which I happen to have a lot of in the back of the house.

3.  They keep on giving.  When one gets too big, I can simply cut it through the middle with my shovel and transplant half of it to a new location.

But, I only just yesterday realized a whole new reason to love a hosta.  They clean up after themselves (and as a mother, I realize that this is not a trait to be under-valued).  As I was pulling out all the other dead stuff in the flower bed to make way for spring's new growth, I found myself wondering where the hosta had run off to.  There were no spindly dead leaves to remove at all.  Very nice.  It just seems to appear and then disappear.  I love it.

Preparing Sweet Potatoes for the Garden

Why are there no sweet potato seeds in my seed catalog?  Oh, because you grow sweet potatoes from other sweet potatoes!  What can I say?  I'm learning as I go here!  So here's what we're doing to prepare to grow sweet potatoes this year. 

First, start with an organic sweet potato from the grocery store.  Why organic?  Because a potato that's been treated with chemicals to make it last longer in your pantry may not sprout at all or may take a really long time. 

Next, cut your potato in half and suspend it in a mason jar using toothpicks so that you can fill the jar with water and cover half of the potato with water.  Place jar in a dim but warm location.  We put ours in our grow room which has a constant heater going but not under the grow lights.  Check often and be sure that the water doesn't get too low or murky.  Freshen water as needed.

Here's what the potato looks like 3 weeks later.  It's growing little plants out of the top and roots out of the bottom.  Today, I removed the tiny plants from the potato by carefully twisting.

I've placed those plants in a bowl of water so that the ends are underwater and placed the bowl back in the warm grow room.  Supposedly, each plant will grow its own set of roots and be ready to plant in soil within the week.

So, what to do with the weirdly sprouted 1/2 a potato that had been stripped of its sprouts?  Cocoa Puff and the chickens were both thankful.

New Garden Boxes: A Work in Progress

I am quite ready for Daylight Savings Time!  Around here, we have so much work to be done outside.  Mostly, it's work that John and I need to do together, but he's rarely home in the daylight hours.  Thankfully, Sunday afternoon provided us some time to work.

Here are the 5 raised garden boxes we intend to use this year.  They're painted white to match the grids we'll be using (remember we're using the Square Foot Gardening Method).  Four of the boxes are 6 inches deep, while the one in the center of the photo is 12 inches deep to accommodate root crops.  We used cardboard boxes as weed block inside the boxes and lined the paths with traditional weed block (only because we ran out of cardboard).  The entire area has been separated from the yard and boxes joined together using 1x4.  We plan to fill the pathways with mulch.

After much research, we've decided to fill our boxes with 1/3 compost, 1/3 rice hulls, and 1/3 peat moss.  The above photo is of the rich compost we've harvested from our own compost pile. 

Because we are novice composters and don't have enough finished compost on hand, we are supplementing with this cow manure. 

Now, the Square Foot Gardening Method suggests using equal parts compost, vermiculite, and peat moss.  We did some shopping around and talking with suppliers and nursery owners and decided to go a different route.  Vermiculite is very expensive and difficult to procure in large quantities.  We've decided to go with these dried rice hulls in place of the vermiculite.  According to our sources, these should accomplish the same purpose (the regulation of water in the soil) for a fraction of the cost.

And, the final ingredient is the peat moss.  We were actually able to buy most of what we needed in large bales from a local nursery.

We poured one wheelbarrow-ful of each ingredient onto a big tarp and mixed it all up.  The girls were great help with this. All was going smoothly until John accidentally flung a shovel-ful onto Girl 1 during our mixing.  "I'm covered in cow poop!"  She was not happy.  However, she continued to work diligently until the job was finished, then put her foot down when it came time to eat dinner.  She WOULD be showering BEFORE she ate dinner.  Who can blame her?

We underestimated how much it would take to fill the boxes, so we've got to get some more before we can finish filling.  However, we were able to get some mix into each box so that the cardboard would be covered and not blow around in the wind.  I'd say it was good work for one afternoon.

Something's Happening in the Guest Room

And, no, the title of the post is not a reference to the broken bed frame our most recent guest left behind. 

The above photo is what the guest room might typically look like.  Whereas, the photo below is what can now be seen growing in the guest room.

Yep, we've set up a seed starting room.  These little gems are growing in mid-June-like conditions.  A space heater is keeping the room at about 90 degrees while a fluorescent shop light suspended from the ceiling adds faux daylight.  I've got a tarp covering the bed, plastic tubs on the bed, and these little pots filling the plastic tubs.

These little pots are easily made from yesterday's newspaper.  When it comes to seed starting, I've always failed in the past when it came time to transplant to outdoors.  The beauty of these pots is that you plant the entire compostable pot when the time comes, reducing the risk of breaking or damaging the plant in the process. 

As you can see, I've made quite a few of these little pots.  For a tutorial on how to make your own, click here. 

Also, this month's edition of Mother Earth News has some great pointers regarding seed starting.  For example, one thing I learned from the article was to top my potting soil with a thin layer of Sphagnum Moss.  The moss keeps moisture levels in check, even in humid indoor conditions, and has proven successful at keeping 80-90% of potentially harmful fungus at bay.

Here's my basket of seeds.  Scheduled to get started this weekend:  onions!

And, just to pique your interest, what in the world could be going on here?  Another post, my friends, another post.  ;)