Garden in a Cup

I have slowly weened myself from buying lots of live plants in the spring by starting my garden from seed.  I'm able to have more plants for a fraction of the cost.  A fraction of the cost and loads more work!  It's the good kind of work though.  The kind that gives you permission to skip badly needed housework and bring bags of dirt in the dinning room.  It also gives you permission to shop online, at beautifully designed websites that have wonderful pictures of tasty food, and buy things you don't have to have, and that you don't have to worry about returning because nothing fits.  It's shopping you can justify - in the long run it saves on groceries, makes healthy meals, encourages exercise and sunlight and vitamin D absorption, grounds your magnetic field with the earth while you touch the soil...  Maybe?  Of course, when most the garden goes to weeds and you are too lazy or hot to go pick anything for dinner it's harder to justify all those seeds, but that's hard to remember in February when you're dreaming of spring and the credit card needs some exercise. 

Last summer I started almost everything myself, and traded with friends for some variety.  I'm using the same technique this year that used I last, and I hope with addition of my mini greenhouse I can expand the number of plants I can start early.   My ultimate goal is to collect seed from the previous season, and save myself the expense of buying seed too.  I have saved seeds from basil, tomato, kale, coriander, zinnia, gourds, squash, and marigolds from last year.  Not everything yet, but it's a good start. 

These are the paper cups we have been making for little flower pots for the seeds.  I like that these are big enough that I don't have to transplant the seedlings, but the best thing about them is that they are free.  Most of these are from sales papers that come in the mail.  Instead of getting irritated by the free trash like I used to, now I get to be happy for something useful to be shipped to me so regularly and at no cost to me.  Thank you consumerism!

So this is what I have been doing in my spare moments and when someone is visiting that I can trick into helping.  "You want to see something cool?  Watch what happens if you roll this paper around a can of sweet peas.  Cool cup, huh?  Now you try... that's it, keep going... just a dozen more!" 

These plastic salad boxes will hold six cups, and they make it easy to keep the cups organized and movable.  I can put water in the salad box and the paper cups of soil soak it up, which makes it easier to water everybody when I don't have to worry about getting water in the top of the pot. 

It was dark outside when I took this picture, but there is a south facing window behind this shelving contraption, and more than three of the shelves have lights mounted to the bottom.  I put the plastic over the whole thing to hold in the heat from the lights and the moisture.

So far I have planted three types of tomatoes, bell peppers, onions, basil, sage, okra, and dill.  More seeds to be planted soon!