With the worst of winter shrinking in our rear view mirror, and spring only 26 days away, we are already deep into “gardening”. But not in the traditional sense. We aren’t applying sunscreen and pulling weeds; what we are working on now will prepare us for the busy months ahead.
A first for us was trying our hand at winter sowing. The concept of winter sowing is to create a mini greenhouse out of clear plastic jugs or bottles. In it, you plant some cold hardy and early spring veggies such as leafy greens, onions and broccoli. Then you seal it back up and put it outside in the sun and let nature do her thing. It’s our first year winter-sowing for you, and we are excited to see how it turns out. If you want to learn more, we made a short video on our instagram, so check it out!
Second thing we have been working on is cleaning our supplies. As you may or may not know, we use 100% up-cycled plastic containers for all our seedlings. We source our containers and trays from landscaping companies, the garden recycling program in Maple Grove, friends and facebook marketplace. Upside to this is that we don’t create any new plastics with our business. Downside; hours and hours of cleaning and sanitizing. We fill up two bins, one with soapy warm water and the other with a vinegar rinse. It’s a long process and usually around day 3 I start cursing the process. But man, does it feel good to reuse!
Another thing that has been keeping us busy is planning our sale dates. Last year we were busy almost every weekend with garden sales starting mid-April. When looking back, this method wasn’t time efficient. This year we are hoping to do less sales but offer more varieties of plants at the sales. We are applying this year to some farmer’s markets in the twin cities, which is new to us and we are very excited about.
And last but not least, the most important and dare say, daunting task; the planting schedule. With over 250+ seeds, we have a lot of information to gather and translate into calendar dates. Starting at our frost date (May 15th) and working backwards is how we are planning our schedule for seedling this year. It’s a lot of learning and reading and ultimately practice in the end and we are very excited putting together our plan for successful seedlings this year!
Be on the look for our next blog, community garden connections! We don’t just sell seedlings, we support community gardens too. And one new and innovative thing Andy is working on is an interactive garden map… more to come later!
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