Well, my computer is pretty much useless right now. I have been able to get to booted, but so many things just won’t work. Even my mouse suddenly stopped working. Then, when I was able to manually open the start menu and select shut down, it wouldn’t.

*sigh*

So much for making a little gardening video. I’m supposed to be able to use the software on my phone, but that would drive me insane.

So here are some photos, instead.

There were not a lot of seeds in the onion packets, but still decent. The Red Wethersfield had the fewest seeds. Those are this year’s red onions. The yellow onions are Frontier and the shallots are Creme Brulee. There wasn’t space to fit the three containers into the large aquarium greenhouse, so one went into the little one.

I used one of the new large-cell trays for the next seeds. The hot Cheyenne peppers were the last seeds from last year. There were only 9 seeds left, for the 7 cells in the row.

The Classic Eggplant were also the last of the seeds from last year. There were 14 left, which worked out well.

Hopefully, we will have at least a few germinate. If we had just two or three plants of these, that would be enough.

The last row is the Little Finger eggplant. I got a new packet of those, but last year’s packet still had 12 seeds. I put two in each of six cells, then added three new seeds in the last one, plus one more in each of the other cells. So, at the very least, we should have a decent number of Little Finger eggplant this year.

This tray is now on the heat mat; something the onions don’t particularly need.

When I did the onions, I had a smaller bag of Jiffy brand seed starting mix. I moistened the entire bag in a huge bowl, first, then filled the repurposed fruit and vegetable trays.

When filling the tray with the larger cells, I finished off that bag. I had a larger bag of Miracle-Gro seed starting mix and moistened about half of it to finish filling the tray. I am curious to see if there is any difference.

As for the aquarium set up, I’m going to have to look for new bulbs. The big aquarium has two sets of lights. The original set that came with the tank lay flat on the glass lids. The lids were constantly getting algea growing on them, under the warmth of the lights. When the hinges on the lids broke, we just took them off completely, but too much moisture was getting on the light cover. So we found a fixture with ends that hold it higher above the tank.

Now that we use the tanks for seed starting, we use both light fixtures. The higher one, however, now has a burnt out bulb. I need to confirm the size of bulb needed, then see what I can replace it with. I’m sure I can find some full spectrum bulbs that will be better for the plants. If they are affordable, I hope to get extras.

The light fixture on the small tank has two LED bulbs. It still works, but is slowly getting dimmer, so it will be time to replace those soon, too.

So there we have it! Our first seeds started for this year’s garden.

Looking forward to seeing fresh green growth!

The Re-Farmer