seeds | Nice Family Homestead

Our Favorite Seed Starting Products

Who’s ready to start some seeds?? We are, we are!! We like to start our seeds early and simple around here. Anything high maintenance just gets left behind and unattended to. So when it comes to starting seeds indoors, the easier the better. Here are some of our favorite products & tips for starting seeds.

1. Find a big south facing window and set up an open shelf (even better if there is a heat vent under the shelf). We use this Ikea shelf:

2. We pieced together this seed starting tray kit. It’s heavy duty and will last many many seasons. Fill the pots with soil/seed starter, plant seeds, fill the bottom tray with water, put the hood on and let it go for a bit. The system will create a moist greenhouse (remember it’s by a window with lots of sun) and when the seeds start growing, use the vents to control air flow and prevent mold.

3. Once the seeds have started to grow, the stems need to be strengthened so they don’t get long and leggy. We clip a small fan like this to the shelf to simulate wind which helps to strengthen the plant.

4. Lastly, I found this super cute water bottle to gently spray the plants and tops of the soil.

Pretty simple right? This is what our setup looks like:

Stop back next month to see how the seeds are growing and what to do next!

🙂 Mama Nice

2015 Garden Planning

Last week the sun was pouring across the backyard and into the kitchen. I love these days. It’s like a little glimpse of spring (Charlie Dog thinks so too).

My yard in the winter is an ice-skating rink. Literally, my kids go out and skate on the ice that overtakes the backyard. I can’t even move some of the fence gates because there is an inch of ice keeping them frozen in place. Going out to the chickens is a comedic adventure as I walk like a penguin hoping to stay upright. My poor dog is depressed that he can’t run freely, so he mopes around and is gaining weight each day. When the “big thaw” begins, there is a river about 6 inches deep that begins to drain around our house.

As I write this post the sun is shining and Papa Nice and I just finished planning the garden for spring and I’m thinking warm thoughts. We are more than doubling our raised beds and I’m so excited to see how much food we can grow for our family.

We are pretty picky about our seeds and we like to order from Heirloom seed catalogs. Most of our seeds are organic, but for those that are NOT organic – at least we know they are non GMO. For the last several years we have ordered from Seed Savers and this year we are going to order from Johnny’s Selected Seeds also.