Waiting to start seedlings is hard! Experience tells me that if I start now, I will be scrambling to find space for all the gangly plant teenagers that just can't leave home to make it outside in the early Wisconsin spring.
I am an over-protective Plant Mother. Seed starting for me is one part mother nurturing, one part science geek and a big part wanting to know where my food comes from. Okay, seed starting may have a little control freak thrown in for good measure.
As mentioned, I'm not good at waiting so I pre-sprout all of my seed for early transplanting. I started doing this because I had some older seeds and didn't want to be surprised when nothing came up. Pre-sprouting was also a little like a science experiment which relieved the boredom of winter. Much to my surprise, almost everything I planted sprouted and earlier the packets suggested.
Over the past five years, I have tuned up this part of seed starting to make it easier to keep track of what I'm planting but still get that head start you need in the shorter Wisconsin growing season.
This year, I'm sprouting my seeds in a notebook!
I took small squares of paper towels, sprayed them with water, added seeds then tucked them into plastic card sleeves. Each sleeve had a number and that number went on a list of the seeds I planted. I set the notebook on the counter in my bathroom and waited. It was easy to flip through the seeds and check for roots.
Once roots started showing, the seeds went into pots with the same ID number on the side. That number is going to be the plant's football jersey for the season. Wherever it goes the number is going to follow and I won't have writer's cramp.
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