The Planting
Gayla asked in a recent post on You Grow Girl why we garden. I commented that I do it mostly for the results; I find the process itself fairly frustrating rather than comforting/calming/soothing, as most true gardeners do. Nevertheless, I saved up some toilet paper tubes (and one paper towel tube, which I cut into thirds) in which to plant the pepper seeds that I'd also saved, and some tomato seeds that I'd bought.
I figured Sunday would be a good day to do the planting, mainly because (a) I was free, and (b) hopefully it would allow enough time to see the seeds germinate before we leave on vacation. I want to assess whether to leave the plastic domes on or take them off before we go.
Gayla had mentioned that the little peat disks I'd used a few years ago to start my seeds were a bad idea, but I was at a loss to make my own seed starter mix, despite the detailed instructions she gave. (I think it's because the supplies at my local Lowe's were sadly lacking; they leaned heavily toward chemical-laden mixes and Miracle Gro organic stuff that I've used before and found to be full of sticks and plastic, of all things.) I finally found a seed-starter mix that contained the stuff Gayla recommended (although it had peat instead of coir) and no chemical fertilizers, as far as I could tell.
I didn't have quite enough toilet rolls to plant as many seeds as I wanted to, so I broke out our stash of yogurt cups (which I can't bring myself to throw away, but can't recycle here) and poked a few holes in the bottom of each.
I also didn't have any plastic domes from take-out containers handy; I wasn't able to scrub all the food oils off the couple Al had saved for me. When I went out to the garage to fetch the seed starter, however, I spotted four or five Fuji apples still nestled in the plastic-crate dozen we bought at Costco a couple weeks ago. I removed the apples, cut the crate in half, and viola! I had two plastic domes to cover my seed pots. They're just high enough to allow for sprouting, and the diameter of the individual apple pockets is exactly the same as that of the yogurt cups.
Of course, the two days since planting have been somewhat overcast; I'm hoping the sun breaks out for real soon, so my little guys get plenty of light.