Starter Seeds

Remember way back when I started herbs in an Aerogarden? Yeah, it's been a long time and I almost forgot about it! I had ordered a starter seed kit - the name is rather deceptive considering no seeds come with the kit, just pods. No problem though! I have plenty of seeds from planting earlier in the season and I bought more just this past weekend in hopes of preparing for a fall harvest.

Seed Starter for the AeroGarden

Seeds for AeroGarden

 The photographs above show what the seed starter comes in - it is just a Styrofoam piece that fits into the AeroGarden with simple dirt pods that you put the seeds into. The seeds above in the Tupperware include seeds that I planted in the squarefoot gardens as well as the additional ones Nate and I picked out over the weekend.

By the way, I can now mention that we are covering our pool into a greenhouse! Needless to say, I am super excited for the possibility of having fresh produce all year round! Yes, I am asking high in the hopes that we will be  successful. So, with that in mind I decided to start the seed starter kit with different kinds of seeds. There are 66 dirt pods so I decided to plant three replicates (hehe science term!) of each kind of plant. Some I planted more of such as spinach, lettuce, and squash. 

The seed starter fits in the AeroGarden after you remove the top plastic piece, which is typically the pod holder. You also have to remove the plastic crossbars so that the dirt pods will soak in water. I filled the bottom portion of the AeroGarden with tap water and placed the seed starter on top. It took several hours for the pods to saturate with water and you really want them to be saturated because it helps with the addition of seeds and of course their growth. The photograph to the left shows each of the pods and there is a tiny hole in the middle where seeds are placed - you can use tweezers or your finger; I had to use a combination of both in many cases.

I think it's a really awesome set up that allows you to grow multiple kinds of plants all at once. The kit says that within 4 weeks or so many of the seedlings can be transplanted into containers (luckily, I have been saving these!) as long as they are around 4-6 inches in height.

Diagram of seed locations

Nutrients

Nate helped me out by writing down the location of each of the seeds on the diagram provided by the kit. We have planted everything from asparagus to okra, peppers and tomatoes, leafy greens and broccoli. I know you are probably thinking that some of these are summer crops! And, you would be correct. But, remember that we are building a greenhouse in our backyard! So, many of the summer crops that we love can be grown all year round. This makes me very excited for all of the possibilities.

I plan to write a new blog post soon about the design and construction of the greenhouse to give you all an idea of what we are hoping to achieve. We will see in about a few days to a week how my new little seeds are doing in the AeroGarden!