The start of something big

I don’t complain about the winter weather. Not while it actually IS winter at any rate. We live in Upstate NY and we have to expect that in the winter it is going to be cold, dreary, crappy, nasty, frigid, icy, snowy, and awful. Also, bad. Complaining about all of that is just pointless, because what good does it do? It’s not like there is a customer service department you can call to request a refund or have a substitute winter shipped out if you don’t like the one we’re having. It also helps that I work at home and never have to go anywhere unless I really really want to.

That all ends with the first day of spring though. Now, I am ready for winter to be gone gone GONE! It’s not gone though, and from the weather report, it’s not planning on leaving very soon. Gah. One must soldier on however, and if winter is not ready to let spring take over, it’s time to begin preparations for when it finally does. That means I can stop just fondling seed packets and actually open them up and plant the seeds therein.For something like 13 or 14 years, I worked at a plant nursery. Working at a plant nursery can really spoil a person. You get spoiled so that when you no longer work there and have to actually pay for all the plants you’ve become addicted to carting home, you can have serious medical problems. Like heart palpitations and shortness of breath when you hand over your debit card with trembling hands, as you get “just a few more” annuals for “color to carry you through the season”, or “oh no, I forgot to grab some basil”, and end up spending another forty bucks. For the 3rd time that day.

Something had to be done. We just could not continue this way. Well, I suppose we could have actually, but we like to eat ALL year, not just in the summer, so we decided to start our own plants. And while I can grow stuff in a greenhouse like gangbusters, growing in the house is quite another matter. We did a smallish trial run last year, starting all of our tomatoes, assorted herbs and perennials. Thanks to the lessons I learned from my old employers, it worked out very well and I even had a couple dozen very nice tomato plants to give away, once we had planted all we could fit in our garden. This year, we purchased an additional grow light, because I plan to start way more plants this year. We now have two of these ones. Some reviewers mentioned flimsiness in these, but I don’t see that at all. Maybe they are trying to perform a trapeze act with theirs, but we find them to be perfect for what we need. Our set up has to be in the livingroom and since they’ll be here for a couple months, it has to look halfway decent, so even though we could have probably saved money by throwing something together ourselves, I’m pretty sure these look better. One of things I like best about this one is that the height of the light is so easily adjusted to accommodate the growing plants. To have strong, healthy plants, the light needs to be just a couple inches from the top of whatever leaves are growing in there, and this light slides up and down very nicely.Adding a bit every couple days, and we will eventually have everything we need for at least the vegetable garden, and some of the stuff for all of my annuals pots as well.Next week I’ll do something of a how-to post, in case you are even more of a novice than I am and need some pointers.