Hello! Happy spring! Is it warm out there yet?

Happy past the middle of March! Are all of those icy snow piles gone?

Happy Maple Season! I hope all of you are planning on attending all of the planned festivities for the Maple Weekend this weekend in our neck of the North Country!

And I sincerely hope that Mother Nature has finally come to her senses and that she will allow us to start celebrating spring!

For the last few weeks we’ve been potting around with our indoor gardens, with our indoor potted houseplants. Today, let’s zing into spring and start thinking about our outdoor gardens. This is the time of the year when lots of gardeners start their garden seeds, or at least they are thinking about starting their garden seeds. Now we can start our onions, parsley, celery, snapdragons, and lavender. Then we can launch into seeding our tomatoes, peppers and eggplant.

What??? You are not going to start any garden seeds??? Please do take into consideration a few good reasons to start your own garden plants – both vegetables and flowers.

1. With your own seed, you will have a greater choice of varieties. Keep in mind, there are probably a billion different varieties of tomatoes that come in a million different shapes, colors and sizes. Your garden centers may offer only a few different varieties of tomato transplants.

2. Starting your own seeds can save you a big bundle of money. Buy a whole pack of tomato seeds, with 1, 2, 3, or 4 dozen seeds inside for the same price as a little six-pack of tomato transplants. And you have enough seeds for this season, and the next, and possibly the next season.

3. Some kinds of plants that are directly seeded into your garden do just as well, or even better, than store-bought transplants. Some kinds of veggies, such as cucumbers, pumpkins, and summer and winter squash, simply hate to have their roots disturbed and may suffer terminal or fatal transplant shock. For these, it might be a better idea to buy seed and direct seed them when the time is right.

4. Starting your own plants from seed is really fun and fulfilling. Of course this fun and fulfillment stuff depends on whether or not you have all of the right stuff to start those seeds off the right way.

5. Besides, starting your own seeds indoors gives your creative cats creative places to play.

At any rate, if you are planning to start those garden seeds yourself, make sure to assemble all of the necessary equipment. And these basic necessities include:

• Clean, sterile pots, containers, growing trays, etc…. (Don’t nuke them, just soak them in bleachy water!)

• Proper seed starting mix – yucky garden dirt will simply not do!

• Sufficient heat source to germinate the seeds – a constant 70-80º will do just nicely. And most baby seedlings need about 70º to keep them alive and actively growing.

• Sufficient light – while most kinds of seeds do not need any light for germination, once those seeds have popped through the growing mix, super bright lighting is an absolute must. A simple sunny windowsill will simply not do! New baby seedlings nee from 12 to 14 hours of bright light each day.

Many a seed starter has great success starting all the seed they could possibly ever need. But then disaster strikes - those newly sprouted seedlings sting on that warm, sunny windowsill start stretching over to reach more of that life giving sunlight. And then they start to get ever so thin and spindly. And then they start to lean over. And then they start to flop over. And then they start to get all tangled up together. Oh, tangled are the webs we weave! And then they are so hopelessly spindly and tangled that there is nothing you can do to undo this grave predicament. And then they will die! And then you will be ever so disappointed! So bright light is an absolute must!

And it is an absolute must that we continue next weekend with this seed starting stuff, because right now I’ve got to dash out to my favorite sugar shack for Maple Weekend. And, hey, you are all invited to come on out and experience a really great time. All of us nutrition educators, Carla Keefer, Christine Countryman and I will be out and about at all of the sugar shack places today and Sunday. We’ve got really great maple displays set up with many great maple facts and tons of really great maple recipes. So come out and meet us. Come on out and have a really great time exploring all of the maple sugar shacks. Come on out and see how this delicious liquid gold is made from maple tree sap. Come on out and sample all the goodies!

Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!

D