Update!

Well it has been a little longer than I planned sense I've updated on here about the starter experiment but I do have some new finds to share with you in a bit. I have had a very busy week and weekend. My weeks are always so busy with kids in school as well as one who stays home because she isn't quite old enough just yet and house/yard work always demanding my attention. I am a stay at home mom of three with a six acre yard we plan to one day turn into our homestead. It is mostly a giant wooded hill but it is ours. It will take lots of time to get it to where we want it and even more so because we do not have a vast amount of money to make it happen. Most of our yard plans will be completed using found, donated or cheaply priced used items and hard labor from my husband and I to get them done. We are by no means professionals and honestly before moving to our property a little more than a year ago I had never done any type of real wood construction. I am always willing to jump in a learn how to get it done though. It is usually cheaper that way anyway. So because of the time it took to accumulate the materials needed to get our well pump covered and out of the weather we are (now close to a year later) trying to get it finished up.

Here are a few pictures of what it looked like last year when we began our journey to building a small shed around it. The plan wasn't to take a year to get it built but due to funds and the ability to afford brand new materials we had to put it off for a while. We received the last bit of materials we needed to finish building it a few days ago and made plans to work towards getting it off the "to do" list this past weekend. We worked until the sun went down on us. You can see the progress we made here. 

Not only did we work diligently on getting the pump house worked on and "improved", I have been watching and caring for these little seedlings all week watching for any new growth or possible down falls to any of the starter options I chose to use. Some of these seedlings are growing so quickly that I have had to transplant them into larger pots (or solo cups) so that they could have more room for those roots. The Wando Pea plants are about three inches tall and they have all begun to grow amazing root systems already. They are just beginning to tower like the giant and the beanstalk. It has been so fun watching them grow over this past week. Every day I find myself and my children hovering over the top of them looking for the changes they've made from the day before.

And of course the Sparkler Radish I planted has shot up and only continues to grow. The Alisa Onion and Red Burgundy Onion I planted in the old egg carton has still yet to show its potential. I am not giving up though because we are still in the germination window as of right now. The onions that sprouted in the toilet paper rolls are growing very well. I have been placing the plants in make shift green houses outside on my tables so that they can get as much true sun as they can on the warmer days of this bitter cold winter. They seem to be loving me for that so I will continue to do so as long as the weather permits. We also have some new sprouts joining the party this week as the Cinnamon Basil has begun to poke its little leaves out of the rich dark soil covering it these past few days. They are such small sprouts that when I tried to show my husband he almost didn't see them. It might have also been that I saw them when they were less than 1/16th of an inch out of the soil and got so excited that I had to show someone! I may get a little too excited about this at times.

So as you can tell they are still very small but they are growing! I will continue to update as the plants make changes over the next few weeks until time to transplant to see which starters are better. I would like to ask you all to leave me some feed back if you would like me to do a blog on each seedling I start. What they look like as seeds, baby sprouts and full grown plants as well as how they grow here in Arkansas USA zone 7a. I would love to write about things you want to read so leave me a comment and let me know what you think! Also if you haven't already follow me on here as well as Instagram and now on YouTube! Thanks for reading. Catch ya later!