The making of a nursery. Year 1… February Updates

Getting away from my personal life and back to the purpose of this blog, here’s an update on our activities and where we are at coming to the end of this short month, and preparing for spring. I don’t want to sugar coat anything or pretend we have things figured out because we are soooo far from that, but bit by bit it feels like we are starting to figure out some things. The kids have been amazing through it all.

They are crafting with dried flowers from our garden, and I am told my insta style is “dated”, so they are making reels and planning content and I watch them and it warms my heart. Our youngest continues to want to “help the Earth” and just wants to be a part of everything.

She’s taken control of our little worm compost, and turns it, picks up the worms, names them and talks to them. She turned 5 a few weeks ago and one of her friends gave her a little greenhouse for her birthday. She checks on it and waters is daily and her herbs and flowers are drowning a little but surprisingly thriving.

The (big) Greenhouse

It’s there. I look at it everyday. It taunts me, empty inside, and also scares me a bit because I’ve never had a greenhouse and I’m not quite sure what to do with it.

The best advice I’ve received to date is to avoid the urge to build a fancy permanent structure inside it the first year, and maybe even the second, since I can’t be sure what will work for me until I’ve found the things that don’t quite work.
I’m so looking forward to setting up the inside of it and starting our growing season earlier than I’ve ever been able to. It’s just not time yet. We got some bricks laid down on one side before the snow came, but I haven’t been back inside since.

I’m so looking forward to setting up the inside of it and starting our growing season earlier than I’ve ever been able to. It’s just not time yet. We got some bricks laid down on one side before the snow came, but I haven’t been back inside since.

I am getting ready though.  I’ve sprouted some sacrificial extra hardy winter vegetables early, and I’m hoping to get them in the greenhouse in the next few weeks, and see if I can find a way to keep them from freezing at night without heat.

Winter Sowing

I spent much of January and February winter sowing, and  everything is blanketed with 4 feet of snow now, so it’s hard to imagine there are so many seeds under there, from so many species, patiently resting till spring.

I’ve tried to catalog everything I winter sowed, but I think I missed at least one batch, which will make for nice surprises when the snow melts. I’ll come back to the sleeping plants later in spring, when they wake up.

Fridge Seeds

I cold stratified some of my tree seeds in the fridge, and a few of them have surprised me by sprouting sooooo early. I found a handful of Heartnuts and Northern Pecans sprouting about about 6 weeks ago, so I potted them up. They grew and grew and today I potted them up again and they’re HUGE! 6 weeks old! 🥰🥰

One of the heartnuts sprouted 3 stems from one seed. It’s currently my favourite and I think I am keeping and naming this one.

Tribecca? Tridenta? It doesn’t really matter, R will likely veto my name and pick something like “Sparkle” (because Ms. Anne hates sparkles, she tells me)…

Vegetables & Herbs

I have been winter sowing native plants for a few years, but decided to try out winter sowing some annual  herbs and vegetables this year too. The theory is that the plants develop a very strong root system, and tend to produce much better than the indoor started ones. I’m not sure if that is true, but I am testing it out this year, and I am very curious to make some side by side comparisons later in the season, as plants mature.

Another reason I winter sowed many vegetable seeds this year is because of space. I’m always looking for ways to maximize my indoor seed starting space, but this year, especially, I need the room. The amount of vegetable and herb seeds we have this year is absolutely mental, and I acknowledge that I have a bit of a seed squirreling addiction.

Vegetable seeds are far more affordable than buying seedlings, and though I’ve killed many with my past experiments, they also make experimenting more accessible. So when I find something I want to try to grow, or that I’ve never tasted, I can’t help myself.  I also have never really found a nursery locally where I could buy heirloom, new to me varieties, and plants I am unfamiliar with, though I have found wonderful seed vendors and heirloom seed savers with old-world varieties I love to grow and taste.

This year, that’s what we did. We spread our support across a large number of small seed vendors focused on heirloom seed preserving, and bought a few varieties from each one, concentrating more on seed companies in our geographic region, where conditions are likely to be similar to our environment and climate. I also ordered some heirloom seeds from my home country (România), and I so hope that I can nurture and keep those alive, especially the Romanian round peppers, which I haven’t tasted since childhood.

Garden Plans for our new home

We moved in the fall, to a house of our dreams (for now). It backs onto a forest with a mountain behind it. It has some water accumulation problems currently which we are looking at as learning opportunities and probably a really really good thing for our plants.

There is a small patch on one side of the yard where fruit trees appear to have been planted, so we have an incredible head start as the beginnings of a food forest.

I “think” there are pears and plums, apples and a mulberry tree, as well as a beautiful butternut tree. We have almost 2 acres of land at our new home, much of which is currently lush, manicured lawn, and I can’t wait to get rid of it.

I learned a lot through my past lawn replacement efforts, and I now have the space to grow anything and everything I can dream up, and I have so many ideas. I know that any excess vegetable plants I can plant this year will grow into more food than we need, while also helping enhance the soil as it transitions away from the lush grass. This will give time for my baby trees, shrubs and perennials to establish where once was lawn, and help to keep the weeds away in empty spaces.

We will sell some of our surplus vegetable seedlings  in the spring to help pay for our nursery start up costs, and grow anything we have left in our garden, which will help prepare the soil for its transition away from grass.

I am hoping this results in far more produce than we can ever consume ourselves, and we  can find ways to share our harvest with our community, and local organizations that can help us put it to good use. We also intend to save as many heirloom seeds as possible through this, and find ways to share those seeds.

Indoor seeds

Returning to the original topic of growing an insane number of seeds this year, it’s still February, we have barely started our indoor sowing efforts, and we are already running low on indoor space, and growing lights. This is what our indoor, 3-season solarium currently looks like.

I’ve started onions, peppers, brassicas, some herbs and recently tomatoes, as well as several species of native seeds which I had leftovers of after winter sowing. These little native babies are surprising me the most. Many of the species sprouting are known to require cold, moist stratification, yet they are happily popping up their little heads without it, and pretty uniformly.

Since space is limited, even this early in my indoor sowing, I’m also experimenting with many different ways of germinating seeds, and transplanting, trying to balance space, light access and time until I can move a lot of these babies in the greenhouse, and try to figure out how to keep them warm once the sun goes down without drawing too much more power.

Seed snails – best ever TikTok trend (and I don’t have TikTok)

Last year, I came across the seed snail growing method invented by Farida Sober, and I have been tinkering with it since, trying to get it to work for me. I find it magical for starting seeds, saving precious space under grow lights, keeping roots untangled until I’m ready to up-pot, but I hesitate to use it beyond small and early seedlings.

Here are 30 different species of tomatoes  sprouting happily in 2 trays!!!

I don’t personally have an issue with the plastic materials that seems to work best with it, because really there is so much plastic all around me, it’s kind of nice to find a second life for it. We moved this fall and I have so much bubble wrap and plastic mattress covers left over from the movers, I don’t think I’ll be running out of materials to use for strips anytime soon.

I am actually hoping the bubble wrap snails can protect the roots of young plants enough that I can bring these into an unheated greenhouse earlier in the season, but that might be naively wishful thinking on my part.

If you read to here I assume our journey interests you, so you must like plants. Or

That or you like me, but more than likely you’d also have to like plants to have read this far.  I’ve finally pulled together a list of all the seeds we are growing this year, which you can find on our website here. Enjoy browsing it, sorry it’s not a fancy catalog, but I’d rather be making more baby plants grow than spending time on a computer.