Egg-cellent Starts

So my campaign to get more containers for planting has been relatively unfruitful. I will pass on a big thank you to my mom who mailed me some along with a pound of home-roasted coffee! This weekend I got up to find that the peas we starting to sprout. I KNEW at that time that I really had to get this show on the road.

The garden plan this year is a pretty ambitious use of space. I think it will probably be too tight in a few places, particularly where the squash and broccoli are going, but we are going to play it by ear. I like planning out my garden from year to year, changing it up to match what actually happened. Doing this makes it possible to keep track of things like rotating nitrogen fixers, what needed more or less sun, or what liked/disliked being planted close to one another.

This was the plan to begin with. I did it in pencil, but then I lost the pencil (I am sooo awesome), so I am writing in what actually got planted in pen over the top of it.


I decided to take advantage of some of the egg cartons I had been saving to take back to our co-op. Some people LOVE using egg cartons because they are simple, small, and easy to move around. Also, if you use the cardboard ones they hold in moisture and you can just cut them up and plant them cups and all into the soil. Those who don't like them argue that there is not enough soil depth to really get good starts. I compromise on this issue by planting things in my egg cartons that I will transplant pretty quickly.

I also love that they are stackable and easy to carry around!


I planted spinach, kale, chard, and basil in my egg cartons. Most of them i put only one seed per unit, but with the basil I put two because I had some trouble last year with my basil seeds sprouting. I chose these plants because I will put them in the soil as soon as I am confident they won't be taken out by heavy rains...at least the kale, chard, and spinach. I may hold the basil inside a bit longer because it likes a little more heat than the others.

I am really loving the starts shelf I made. The one downer is that the screens have stretched a bit where the containers are so they don't sit totally level. Fortunately for me that does not affect the plants' growth, and only really causes issue if one is anal retentive enough to care that things are a bit lopsided (I am not).

Start Me Up

I have been saving and saving my old plastic containers and FINALLY have amassed enough to get one crop started for spring...this is going to have to speed up A LOT!!!

Anyhow, I decided to start my peas tonight for a couple of reasons:

1. Peas like cooler weather and can easily get burned when the sun gets intense. I know that they will do well in the early spring, but I have been assured by people who live here that summer gets quite hot and dry.
2. Peas take a while to get going, and I want them to be significant plants before I transplant them. I am worrying about small animals that might want to snack on tender pea shoots (I don't blame them), so I want to have some solid plants before I put them out into the wilds of the backyard.
3. Starting my peas now means that I have to get my butt in gear and build a place for them to climb.
4. I happened to have my peas saved from last year, and have yet to purchase a lot of the seeds I am planting this year.

I am going to have two different kinds of peas this year - sugar snap peas, and Oregon Trail shell peas (not planned, but funny in a cheesy way nonetheless). Both varieties come from peas I saved from past plantings. Originally both were seeds I purchased through Seeds of Change. This year my goal is to have lots of peas to eat fresh, but I doubt I have enough space to grow peas to put up - we shall see how it goes.


I filled my containers with soil that we got from a local gardening center. Because we are planting into the sheet mulch that is currently composting in the raised beds, I want to make sure that the area around the roots of each plant is nutrient-rich soil so as to mitigate any issues with our little mulch experiment.


I planted two peas per container, 7 containers per pea type. In the end I should have enough plants to run along the full length of one of the raised beds in the back.

Now, here's something very cool that was a total accident. We had a tupperware bin sitting out in front of the house that no one bothered to put away. As the rains came down last week I slid it under a place where our gutter leaks a bit to catch water. I can't say that I have the know-how to fix the gutter at this point, so I figure why not try and turn a problem into a solution? The result is a nice reservoir of rainwater out front that I am using for watering the starts as well as the house plants.


A tupperware bin we never put away becomes a great cachment out front by the rosebush.