In another two months, my magical seed starting closet should be up and running! And by magical seed starting closet, I mean the most basic DIY setup you’ve ever seen. I used a folding table, two milk crates, a few seed starting trays with clear covers and a light. They weren’t even those fancy pants plant lights! Yet most everything started wonderfully (it’s the after-care I fucked up).

Basically because my cats are wee terrors who cannot be trusted with even the most uninteresting and non-cat related objects in my home I had to put this bad boy in a closet. Since I didn’t have a really high powered light, and I gave adequate space for everything, I wasn’t too worried about heat or fire hazards (though I did keep a smoke alarm around there just in case). SAFETY FIRST.

So here’s what I did:

I filled the trays about halfway with soil.

I then put a seed or two in each space, and filled it the rest of the way up with dirt.

I then gently watered the trays (since the soil compacts when you water it the first time I wanted to make sure the seeds were fully covered. I’ve had them become uncovered during watering before)

I then placed the lids on, flipped on my cheap-ass lights, and walked away.

MAGIC.

Now you may be wondering what I did with the lighting situation. For the first few days, I left them running 24/7 but once things started sprouting, I kept them on a 12 hour rotation. I gently watered every day and once they became too large for the clear cover, I removed it. The lights were on a hanging chain so as the plants grew, I could raise the lights. Sadly since I fucked up some other stuff, these didn’t turn out as I’d hoped. This year, we’ve got all the kinks ironed out and this shit should be tight.

Gardening is always a grand experiment. I fuck up constantly but still manage to feed myself from the plants I narrowly avoid murdering every year. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that nature is forgiving and flexible.