It's time to start some seedlings for area 6b

According to this government site:http://www.usna.usda.gov/Hardzone/hzm-sm1.html

I live in zone 6b.

Looking at the back of my seed packets I see its time for me to start some of my seedlings. If it is still too early to plant outside remember I am probably already too late in getting some started for my green house. In any case its time to start things like, peppers, cabbage, celery, tomatoes, squash, pumpkin, watermelon and some herbs.

You may remember that I already have lettuce, cilantro and arugula growing on my counter. I am still anxiously waiting on my first harvest of the salad fixings.

Through searching the Internet I have found several places who say to get a paper towel and pour your seeds on it. Then place the folded paper towel into a zip lock bag and add a small amount of water, just enough to dampen the paper towel. Close the bag and place in a relatively warm place like the top of your refrigerator. The seeds should germinate in two to three days. When the seeds have little tails on them they have germinated. At that time you can plant the seed directly into a seed pot or one of those little disk things that grow when you put water on them.

Be sure to cover the pots either with the dome that came with the set up or with plastic wrap. I am only going to use this method with seeds that are big enough for me to handle. Smaller seeds will be directly sown.

Once the tiny little green shoots poke their heads out of the ground it is time to uncover the pots and place the trays of pots under a growing light. A growing light can be a plain old shop light or an actual grow light if you have money to spare.

Keep the light about two inches above the pots. As the plants emerge more and grow, be sure to raise your light source. If the light is too far away the plants can get leggy. I don't actually know what getting leggy means, I am guessing too long in the shoot or stem.

When the plants get their true leaves you can again transplant them to bigger pots if you have used the little seed pots that grow or leave them in the other pots if that is what you started out with.

Continue to raise the light as necessary and keep the plants moist at all times.

This year I am going to build a seed starting shelf unit. I have it planned out in my head and would like to use three shop lights and thus have three shelves to start plants.

I plan to grow more flowers this year than I usually do and many more vegetables.

So lets get to it and get our plants started.