Remember those pots I painted awhile back?

 

Well, this week I decided I simply couldn’t wait any longer to plant something in them so last night during our grocery shopping trip, I dragged Hubs out to the garden center to look for herbs.

Sadly, they don’t start carrying those until later in the year, according to the nice sales lady, so I had to settle for seeds.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the idea of planting things from seed. And I love how cheap seeds are, I just haven’t had super great luck with it. Plus, you have to wait so long to get any sort of satisfaction from your work.

Still, planting seeds that take 2 weeks (or longer!) to germinate is better than waiting for another month or more before places start carrying fresh herbs.

At only $0.20 each, I think we can afford to chance it if they don’t grow, but I’ll be a little heartbroken if they don’t. There’s just something so sad about seeds that don’t grow to me. I can’t help it, I’m an emotional soul sometimes.

So, this afternoon, I set to work planting my cute little pots with the tiny seeds.

I chose chives, parsley, and peas.

 

(Yes, I realize peas aren’t an herb that can live on my kitchen counter in a tiny flower pot, but I figured I’d try it out and move them out to the garden when it warms up out there.)

I used the special seed-version of potting soil, and we sprang for the name-brand Miracle Grow kind because it wasn’t really that much more expensive and I think it will work a lot better than the cheapo stuff.

Note: Yes, I did this in the living room. I was neat and even put down paper, and yes, I realize I could have gone outside, but it’s my house and I can garden inside if I want to, right? Plus, I may or may not have been fully dressed when I was doing this. The perks of working from home, right?

Every seed packet has instructions on the back, so I’m not going to list a tutorial her for planting them. The chives seeds looked like teeny-tiny mouse pills. Kinda gross.

And the peas were just dried out peas!

I will caution you to water carefully or you’ll wash them away and waste all that work!

I did take a picture of my freebie, easy-fix to keep the fine potting soil from washing out the pretty large drain hole in the bottom of my pots:

It’s just thin cardboard, cut to fit.

And then I punched a few small holes in it to help drainage. I realize it will disintegrate eventually, but I just need it to hold until there starts to be some roots and the soil gets a little more packed so it doesn’t wash out every time I water it. Plus, after the initial watering when you soak the soil pretty well, you shouldn’t be watering that much at once anyway.

Here’s how the finished product looks, although it’s a bit silly because it looks like I have three nice pots filled with dirt and nothing else sitting on my window sill.

I set them in a divided serving platter I have to catch any drips or dirt that does fall through the drain hole, and because I thought it looked pretty.

I may look for some other sort of tray to sit them on eventually. But for now, this will do nicely, don’t you think?

Here’s to good growing luck! Everyone cross your fingers and send these little seeds big, encouraging thoughts, okay? I’ll keep you posted on their progress!

Want an update? Check out this post!

And in the meantime, tell me your seed secrets. Any tips or tricks out there? What are you impatiently waiting for spring to get here so you can do/plant/have/go/eat?