Starting seeds indoors

Planting Flower or Garden Seeds

It is getting time to start thinking about planting flower or garden seeds indoors. Certainly, time to clean and get the area ready and order the seeds and stuff you will need for germinating seedlings. Everyone has a little area they can start a few seeds. I use a back room just for this purpose.

Organize your leftover seeds from last year

Why not wait and buy the plants from a greenhouse or nursery? For instance, you can find 50+ varieties in a catalog instead of a couple of dozen in a retail store. Like a tomato, you have a larger selection of colors, sizes, maturity dates, types of heirloom varieties, etc. Other things you can pick from are tomatoes for drying, yellow watermelons, cabbage that will keep until next March, and other qualities of certain vegetables. Did you know there are pink and white eggplants?

PVC light setup

First, you need to get your seeds ordered. Then you will need to get or buy some cheap fluorescent light fixtures. I replace the light tubes with grow lights.

Getting everything ready

Find your germinating containers, either buy the ones for this purpose or recycle cut down milk cartons, cottage cheese containers, small cake pans, etc. Make sure they all have drainage holes. If you used plastic containers from last year, dip them into a 10% solution of bleach then rinse. This removes any disease materials left over.

Get your planting media, do not use soil. I have found the easiest solution for myself is to get regular germinating media. I usually purchase this from a greenhouse supplier in a larger bag instead of getting the smaller more expensive bags you find in retail stores.

Later I will write when it is time to start germinating the seeds after you get everything set up. Even now it is not too early to start onions, geraniums, begonias, and petunias if you’re adventurous.

Small fruits

The Other Fruit We Can Grow

We all know fruit like apples and pears and bush fruit like raspberries, but there is other fruit we can grow in South Dakota besides these.

Dewberries
  • Like dewberries which look like blackberries, however, their canes have a habit of growing on the ground. They are used for pies and jellies. Once started they take minimum care.
Huckleberries
  • Huckleberries are a perennial bush that looks like a blueberry with a sweet flavor. Used by American Indian tribes for food and dye. Often grown in shadier areas the berries can be dried.
Elderberries
  • I have a couple of elderberry plants that grow 6 to 8 feet tall producing a lot of berries. The reddish to purple berries remind me of chokecherries. I have made syrup which was great.
Gooseberries
  • Everyone knows of gooseberry pie. I have grown gooseberries for years which are amazingly easy to do. Gooseberries start as green fruits turning to purple which becomes extremely sweet.
Currants
  • Currants look like gooseberry bushes but without the thorns. Red to black berries used like gooseberries.
Mulberries
  • Mulberries varieties come in white, red, purple, and black sweet fruit. Silkworms in China live in mulberry trees. Being a tree, it grows around 30 feet tall. They are not grown as an ornamental tree being messy with the dropping fruit. Good for syrup and pies.
Buffalo Berries
  • Buffaloberries grow as small trees similar to Russian Olive trees. The little red fruits are bitter but make good pies. These trees are not for ornamental use because of the large thorns which only the buffalos can get to.
Salmonberries
  • Think of raspberries growing on bushes with a large purple flower and you have the salmonberry. They grow on a shrub growing 6 to 8 feet tall. They do like moist soils and some shade.
Saskatoon Berries
  • How about a blueberry that grows on a small 10-foot tree, you got the saskatoon. They belong to the family of serviceberries which are a large family of berries. Saskatoon has the flavor hint of cherry surviving temp down to -60.
Barberries
  • Barberries are grown around here as ornamental bushes with green, red, or yellow foliage. With thorns, they are used as barrier plants. There are varieties grown for their small, red fruits in use with jelly and dried.

Of course, let us not forget the native plums and chokecherries. Many varieties have come out of these families making for larger fruit.

Home Improvement

Industrial look for Interiors of Home

There is an increasing interest in the industrial look for interiors of the home especially in the kitchen, bathroom, and bedroom. It takes the look of a turn of the century factories and lofts and brings it into home décor. With the lack of affordable housing in large cities, people moved into old factories and lofts to make a living space.

The walls often have red brick, metals, and dark paint. The furniture often has a pipe or metal look with a solid upholstery usually in leather. It is never complete without the old looking light fixtures with the Edison bulbs. Encourage is the use of recycled materials.

This is minimum design without cluttering the surfaces with anything. Space should mostly be bare and open. Accessories include large wall art and metal structures recycled from a junkyard.

Exposed pipes and ductwork should not be covered. Vintage photos placed in old metal frames can be placed on the walls or tables. The industrial style is simple but relaxed.