This weekend my little garden helper and I got the ball rolling on starting seeds for this season.

We fired up the grow lights after having them sit dormant for the Winter and they worked beautifully.

After that, it was time to play with some dirt.

We loosely follow the Square Foot Gardening method and as part of that there’s a little soil mixture that’s pretty pervasive. It’s one part compost, vermiculite and peat moss, all mixed up into delicious planting goodness.

Once you’ve got it all mixed up, you get a small child (preferably your own) with a Dora the Explorer garden trowel to spread it. They’re very good at it.

We’ve got a dozen or so seed trays with inserts that we use to start our seeds in. The trays and inserts from Greenhouse Megastore are the best-priced that I’ve found.

We got two full trays filled today and then my seed-tray-filler got hungry. You don’t mess with a hungry seed-tray-filler. Over the next week or so we’ll get the rest filled.

I’m waiting on new seed trays to come in before putting seeds in. Last year I accidentally ordered trays with holes in the bottom, which meant I had to do a heck of a lot more work to keep the soil in these damp. So, I’ve got some new trays with no holes so I can put water in their and keep the soil properly hydrated. They should be in this week.

Then after that we’ve got a lot of seeds to get started!