Getting the Greenhouse Growing

It just felt like the right time to get some dry seeds into wet dirt.  My greenhouse has been dry, cold, and empty all winter.  This weekend I fired up the greenhouse heater, sorted my huge collection of seeds, and got a whole bunch of seed potted up to germinate.

Usually this involves a trip to the store for at least 3 bags of
seed-starting mix, but not this year.  At the end of the 2013 season, I was in Walgreen's on some sort of wellness-related errand, and found these compressed blocks of coconut fiber, aka coir, on sale dirt-cheap (wait for it).  I bought all 4 remaining bricks for about $1 apiece.

So, plop this brick in 2 gallons of water and shortly you have half a bucket of fine, crumbly, and wet seed starting mix.

This stuff is made from the fibrous hulls of coconut, and it sops up water like a sponge.

The coir spreads nicely into the tray cells, and washes off my hands clean.  Jiffy, the seed mix brand I usually use, always leaves a residue of fine shiny mica bits on my hands.

Once I had the trays full of mix, I got out my secret seed-starting weapon.  This little piece of aluminum is indispensable to me.  My first year in the greenhouse, I tried sticks, pencils, and fingers to make shallow holes in the cells, and then after placing the seeds, flick mix over top to cover.  None of them made me happy. Then I came across this guy, who started his life as the low man on a wind chime totem pole.

Here he is in action, making perfect holes in my patented TP seed starting system.

I used some peat plugs last year, and liked them.  Since I already had the trays, I picked up some refill plugs.

So it winds up being a mix of peat pots, TP pots, and plastic trays with the coconut fiber mix.  I wound up only using 2 of the coir bricks.  I may need a third in about a week...I have a few more things to get going.

I'm also using this vertical rack again.  It's nice because if you water the top trays, the water drips down to the next layer, and so on.

Some numbers from this this weekend; I started 260 tomato plants, 72 pepper plants, and 12 eggplants, assuming every cell produces a plant.  Each cell has 3 or 4 seeds...a bit of insurance since I'm using a lot of year-old and home-saved seed.  Only about 70 tomato plants will wind up in my home garden.  The rest will be for the 2 satellite gardens, family, friends, and maybe some for sale.

So, I'm planning what veggies I will raise in 2014, and I'm in need of a little inspiration.  Any suggestions on a new crop to try this year?