Starting to Think About Seed Starting

At the time of writing this, there's a little less than 2 months before the seed starting season kicks off. It will be my third year bothering to start seeds.

The first year I did too much and had a lot of tomatoes and peppers that never found homes; there was also an issue of growing too many tomatoes in a small space. This lead to both over abundance when it came time to harvest and was a cause for early disease onset.

I knew I needed to scale back the following year, and I did -- too much. I ended up needing to rely on starts from a local nursery. This was a waste of money and a loss of time, and it meant I was extremely limited in the varieties of things I could grow.

This third year of seed starting and fourth year overall of gardening has me feeling confident. Before, the only things that had definite spots were jalapenos and marigolds. Now, jalapenos, habaneros, Hawk's claw chilis, a number of lettuces, and a long list of other veg, flowers, and herbs have reserved spots. What this means is a (mostly)(hopefully) easier round of seed starting this year. I'll probably go with something like 3 or 4 cells per variety. Assuming I can raise all cells properly, I'll have enough to plant out both the veranda and school gardens. I'll probably have some leftover starts to give to friends and family, too.

What I like about having more decided before I start seeds is that it makes me freer to experiment. In the past, I was always trying out new crops and hoping that I would have the space for them. That's what happens when you don't plan nearly enough. On the other hand, now I know exactly how much space I'll have with which I can play around a bit.

One definite new addition this year will be yacon. A friend and fellow gardener sent me a starter that is now resting in a small planter for the winter. I also want to screw around with a few more pepper varieties. I've grown Carolina Reapers in the past, but I think I'm done with super hots. There's just not enough return in terms of feeding my family and myself. Instead, I'd like to try banana peppers and scotch bonnets. I would really like to grow Candy Cane peppers, but that's totally dependent on finding seed.

I'll have a little more space, so I want to try out cucumelons and find a new variety of grape tomato. These both require a little digging. Since I'm limiting myself to organic seeds and I've only found Green Field Project so far to provide said organic seeds in Japan, I am a little bit at the mercy of their catalogue.

Finally, I'm trying to move a little bit into perennials. I really want to get both fig and lemon trees, as both are apparently easy enough to grow in planters. If all goes well, though, I'll have much more space to work with this year and land with which I can start working on a permaculture setup.

When do you usually kick off seed starting? Are you planning to try anything new this year? Tell me about it!