I’d always thought of myself as a hack gardener because I didn’t plant from seeds. I’d usually buy a bunch of plants at the PIC plant sale and/or the various big box stores. Sometimes they’d do well and sometimes not so much…

I thought about starting plants indoors but I couldn’t find anyone who had a lot of success with this process or at least anyone who didn’t have a full (read:expensive) set up. I’m sure it’s possible.

Today we went out to plant. I dutifully looked in my square foot garden book and felt like I did a pretty good job helping the kids sink the pole bean seeds 1″ deep and 2″ apart. We planted near a trellis that I’d already mounted. Easy when the seeds are big (the Kentucky Wonder Pole and the Climbing French “pole beans”) but when we went out front to plant the basil seeds…a different story. How are you supposed to “plant” these? We made two long furrows about 1/4″ deep, tried to sprinkle the seeds in, and then covered with some compost mixed with dirt. (Picture below). We put the chicken wire on to keep the cat away.

I guess when you get 250 seeds for $1.75, you hope that you get ten good plants and you’re still waaaayy ahead of a trip to Lowe’s.

Anyway, April 20th: pole beans planted, two rows of basil planted.

Coda: We had an awesome architect come to school to talk about food, gardening, and building design. His major point: we can recognize almost any brand name, millions of different structures, but usually have no idea what a particular plant looks like. I realized that if I were confronted by twelve seeds I’d have no chance on most of them; who knew that Basil seeds would be so frickin’ tiny. And I haven’t even opened the carrot packet yet which is scary ’cause I’ve heard those are even smaller.