With tomatoes and peppers growing strong in the house, peas starting to climb their trellis, and potato greens finally popping through, it’s time to start the next round of seeds! {Keep reading to see pictures of these darling growing plants}. This farming life is one of constant juggling of schedules and starting things early for the best luck/harvest later. Or so I’m discovering. And we had quite the selection of seeds to start!

This year we’re going to plant companion flowers with some of our veggies; specifically putting nasturtiums in the grow bags with our Italian squash. The idea is that the nasturtiums will help control and/or limit the squash bug invasion, so hopefully we’ll have a better yield for longer. {Nasty things discovered the squash vines last year about midway through the growing season, and that was all she wrote}. Fingers crossed!

We’ve also started chamomile, calendula, bee balm, and bachelor buttons, so our veggies will have lots of companions, and the garden will be festively flowered. If you want to know more about companion planting, Vegetables Love Flowers is a great resource, and one that I will be diving deeper into myself, because I love the idea of flowers pulling double-duty.

Other seeds started in this round include two kinds of cucumbers: Japanese Long and Straight Eights, so we should be set for cukes. {Especially if I’m able to convince Mr to let me add a Boston Pickling vine or two: my favorite!}. Marvel of Venice green beans were direct-sowed, in hope that starting them in March (when you’re supposed to, ha) we’ll have a better harvest than last year when we planted them after the peas finished in late May/early June. Radishes (White Dikon and Cherry Belle), beets, and arugula were also direct-sowed, while we started butterhead lettuce in cell tray/flats. {The first set of lettuces did not make it past the nights in the 20s, yikes!}. A handful of herbs: sweet basil, Italian oregano, common sage, and spearmint, to accompany the dill and lavender we started previously, and our seed starting bonanza was concluded.

Now we wait for germination and the lovely growing time; and figure out where everything will go, once it’s ready to move into the garden! It can be tricky to juggle crops when you’ve got limited space and a lot of plants, but we added more grow bags and are carefully plotting to maximize our space availability. And of course, any extra seedlings we end up with come time to transplant from small starting containers to the garden will find happy homes with family, or friends. Having a garden is all about sharing – whether it’s seeds, seedlings, or produce!

And now the promised pictures of the first set of seeds’ development. These baby plantlings are doing so good! I’m very proud of the tomatoes, and the peas are simply happy. There’s more potato greens popping up by the day, and it’ll soon be time to set up stakes so they don’t fall over. Springtime growth is such a happy, hopeful time.

**Disclaimer: As a Bookshop.org affiliate I will earn a small commission on any purchase.**