It will be a month tomorrow since I started my first 2025 seeds. I’m happy to report that most of them are doing well. I even took advantage of the 50-degree-Fahrenheit temperature yesterday and transplanted some of them out into the garden.

I hope that with some warm temperatures in the next few days, I can get it to grow and get used to the new soil in the raised bed. If I fear the temperatures are too low for the seedlings, I can always put an additional dome over it to give it an extra layer of warmth beneath the plastic.

I’ve been doing things differently this year with my seed starting. I changed up the seed starting mix from using 100% coconut coir to 2 parts coconut coir and 1 part coarse vermiculite. It seems to be keeping the gnats and aphids away, at least so far. I also added a humidity dome which kept the soil wet enough that I didn’t have to water for almost 3 weeks straight. The adequate moisture also helped with germination. The third change I did with this year’s seed starting is the heat mat. Although I used a heat mat last year, I kept adjusting the temperature, making some of the vegetables miserable. This year, I’m keeping it all at 75-degree-Fahrenheit with the probe right down the middle since that’s the spot for the most accurate temperature reading.

Of all my years seed starting, I don’t think I’ve ever had almost 100% germination within the first week.

The reason I cannot say 100% germination because there were some seeds that either wanted to take its time or didn’t want to germinate at all and I’m saying this to you – Russian Tarragon, Borage, Licorice. I wanted to add Lavender to that list but as of last night, a few lavender seeds have germinated and some are on its way to germination.

Those are Munstead Lavender seedlings you are seeing. I’ve also started another variety of Lavender – English Lavender. These two types of lavenders are supposed to look almost completely different from one another. I guess we’ll see.