Horticulture Therapy: Seed Catalogues

This is the time of year that I go to the mailbox quite happily because more often than not, lately, there are seed catalogues to be found inside, which makes the arrival of those pesky bills much more tolerable.

So far I have received mailings from Terra Edibles, Renee’s Garden, Richter’s and McFayden. In fact, just a few days ago I sent a tweet saying that I was thinking about starting some seeds.

If I can’t have morning sunlight I can at least having morning grow-light. Got to get some seedlings going soon!

— playinthedirt (@playinthedirt) January 17, 2012

That very day when I went to the mailbox, there was a package from McFayden waiting inside. The package contained a selection of seeds including a variety of Echinacea called “PowWow Wild Berry” along with several vegetables such as Crookneck Early Summer Squash, San Marzano Tomatoes and Corentine Hybrid Pickling Cucumber. Just typing about seeds makes me excited these days. I’m itching to get some going in my little home office where I sit and write about gardening and family life.

In addition to receiving seeds, I also received a Jiffy seed starting kit. I noticed something different about the Jiffy pellets. Rather than being surrounded by a mesh coating, a feature of Jiffy pellets I always disliked, they seem to be coated in something new. The new coating looks and feels more like soft tissue. I did a quick search of the Jiffy product website and couldn’t find any information about this change in the pellets.

There is one other thing that I dislike about Jiffy pellets and that is the fact that they contain peat, which is a non-renewable resource and therefore not terribly environmentally-friendly. However, since they were sent to me and the mesh is gone, I plan to give them a try to see how the plants do, and to determine if the outer coating needs to be removed the way the mesh did.

There is still a lot of garden planning to be done before many seeds are started, but I think I’ll begin with a few that I already have here in the house as a form of horticultural therapy.

What are you growing?

Tagged as: Seeds