Here at our house, Ben has been maniacally starting flats of seeds.  He decided that this would be the year to kick the plastic seed-flat habit (gross, breakable, disposable, ugly, totally un-environmental, and completely ubiquitous in the farming world).

So Ben has starting using soil blocks, a la Eliot Coleman (check out his books for instructions – we bought ours here).  We tried putting the soil blocks inside plastic flats int he past, but the flats always bend when they’re moved, and break the soil blocks, destroying the fragile seedlings.  So Ben has been constructing these simple boxes – beautiful, and of course, longer-lasting.  He’s also making our first Dutch Lights (aka cold frame), which we’re super excited about!

We have a small, kooky glass porch off the north side of our house that we put seedlings in as the weather allows.  The Dutch Lights will start off in there (with supplemental heat from seed mats), and then I think we’ll try moving it out to the garden for our first hot bed with some manure from Cole.  Exciting . . .

(In case you’re wondering, we’ve started onions, kale, beets, cabbage, arugula, and lettuces.)  One of my favorite things about starting seeds is the reminder of each tiny spark of life.  How we can choose to experience that miracle, again and again.  How the seeds first come up with their “seed leaves,” which all look similar, and then begin to grow their “true” leaves.

On an unrelated note, my package from the Vintage Swap arrived this week from the lovely Julia at Adirondack Mama.  Thank you Julia!  Beautiful fabrics, and Ella immediately dove into the rickrack, as you can see above.

See you soon for Monday’s menus.