Seeds in Dirt. Holy Crap.

I have been living out on the property affectionately called Stoneyhaw (website coming soon! Just have to design the damn thing. Oh. And start a farm for content!) for 4 months now. While it is just me now, for several weeks my father was out here, and my mother was out here for a tad over 2 months.

In that time we have gotten SO much done. We cleared the driveway, acquired a camper (which is how, in turn, I acquired my fix it man, but that is a whole entire cute story in of itself), cleared a tract for the power lines, had power put in, got a shed in, got a water system hooked up to the old well.... the list goes on. Until now this has mostly been preparatory stuff. Either for long-term residency in general, or for the farm. Mostly for the farm. Everything has been an indirect path to farmness.

Until now. I have seeds in dirt people. This is super effing exciting. I have a secret fear that NOT A SINGLE THING will grow, and I will remain unemployed AND not have a food supply, but I did get my paperwhites to bloom in a sub-zero camper (ssshhh! Don't remind me of the chemicals they lace those things with. Give me the points, OK?) so I'm feeling ahead of the game so far.

I did decide to start stuff indoors (I don't actually have anywhere for any of it to go outside yet. Yet, she says, optimistically....), but my shed is not insulated. So I had to come up with some creative ways to keep the little seedlings lit and warmer than the frigid air in there.

A trip to Lowe's later, I got something rigged up, and stuff in dirt. Woot!

That is a boot mat. And tin snips. And an LED rope light. This will (in theory) provide heat for the little seedlings. Just enough to keep them from getting too too cold.

Zip ties!

I *may* have gone slightly overboard with the whole zip tie thing, but I was having fun.

All trimmed up and ready to be covered in plastic. They're actually rated for outdoor use so they *could* get wet, but I drilled holes for the zip ties, so....

The plastic sheeting that I happened to have had on hand for the greenhouse/cold frame I didn't build.

That's right. Celery root. Suck it.

On the lights, under the dome. Ready to go.

The family jewels.