Seedlings

The weather is always so unpredictable this time of year. A few weeks ago we were under feet of snow, last weekend it rained for what felt like weeks, and the past few days have been t-shirt and shorts weather. I resisted the urge to run out and buy a bunch of plants this weekend but I did get my seedlings started.

Last year I bought this mini greenhouse system and failed in my task of starting plants from seed. I think I have a black thumb in growing houseplants but a perfectly acceptable green thumb in anything outdoors. Instead of spending money on some large plastic tray and dehydrated soil pods I resurrected a trick that my Auntie E told me about, using egg shells and cartons to start seeds.

It's as easy as it seems to set it up but it does help to eat a lot of eggs. I eat two soft boiled eggs every morning and delicately crack the shell and scoop out the runny delicious yolk and white and end up with a cleaned out shell. For the past few weeks I've been saving those shells. I tucked them out of the way but apparently they broke my husband's "no experiments in the house" rule so I felt like I had to transition them from what looked like a science experiment on growing mold to a gardening project.

I nested two shell halves and filled each one with some loose soil. I dug a shall hole and dropped in a seed or two and covered the seed with some soil. I then wrote the type of seed and the date planted on the top of the carton. My main concern is watering them enough for them to sprout but not too much that the paper carton gets gross. We'll see what happens.