Sowing the seeds

The weather this year has been quite strange. It's mid May and the past few weeks have been chilly. Luckily it is just starting to warm up. The rain has also been constant. Every day is dreary and rainy.

While this weather is depressing to me I am pretty sure it is good for plants. I haven't had to water much at all and I have tried seeding some new plants in the hope that it is not to late to start. Previously I had direct seeded in the ground.

This turned out badly in most cases:

Poor little plant. Some of the plants have done ok but I have decided that it is much more difficult to control conditions when direct seeding and that planting in pots and then transplanting might produce better results.

Here is what I do to plant my seeds. First my dog Kramer helps me arrange my little pots. He is especially interested because he needs to decide what to trample after I plant them. I reuse pots that used to contain store bought plants. 

For small seeds like lettuce or the onions below I put them in a little container rather than pouring them from the packet:

I use organic soil with some peat mixed in Then I press the seeds into the soil at the recommended depth. 

After seeding I cover them with a clear plastic cover to keep the moisture in. I am pretty sure this has really helped the seeds grow and the soil not dry out.

As one would imagine, waiting for the seeds to grow is very exciting. It is great when they start to pop out of the soil. I am still waiting for the onions to emerge but here are some pictures of a few melons after two weeks:

Here they are after a few more weeks:

And this is how they looked this weekend:

Now I need to figure out how to keep the melons from rotting after they grow. I have seen some interesting trellis' to keep them off the ground but need to build one I suppose.

On another note here is a carrot I pulled out of the ground this weekend. What is wrong with that carrot? It had been growing for months. Its a good thing I am not a carrot farmer.