Looking through pictures while I made my yearly recap shocked me. We've been in Alaska for nearly eight months (!!!!!!!!) and as I looked through January through late April pictures I had completely forgotten that less than a year ago I was living in Olympia. Spending time with friends in Seattle. GARDENING. These things we used to do feel so far away, our life in Alaska so very US, so very OUR LIFE, I had forgotten for a moment that this other life we lead for over two years was not all that far away.
Things like, we adopted Stella one year ago this month! Only one year she's been in our little family. Less than a year ago I was still pulling out my hair as I cleaned carpets and put my dog in diapers. Today? She's 100% LEAK FREE. An actual normal dog. And has been this way for so long now that I had forgotten the road it took to get her here.
So many things about 2011 were amazing. From the vacations we took before we moved, to the life altering decision to move to Alaska, to every crazy adventure that's come since we moved north has been unbelievable. I haven't a clue what 2012 has in store for me, but I have a suspicion that it's going to be even better than 2011.
Sorry, I got all excited and wanted you to guess what I was doing with these eggs, and then I didn't do the project. Making the whole guessing game post a little premature.
This weekend though I finally got my act together and now I can let those of who who guessed "gardening" know that you were indeed, correct!
HIGH FIVES THROUGH THE COMPUTER TO ALL OF YOU!
Last year I bought one of those seed starter kits with the little soil pods and it was extremely easy to use, but it was a little costly, and I had weird results with things like my carrots as I've mentioned before. Also, I really wanted to see if I could start my plants this year the cheapest way possible AND the most environmentally friendly. I'm still finding the little cheese cloth casings from last years seed starters in my garden!
A little research led me to the option of using eggshells for seed starters and I was hooked.
So here we go. I am now going to breakdown the process of making eggshell seed starters, and I warn you, this is long. But informational! Like that time I told you how to build a garden.
Here goes nothing!
First thing you need are some eggs. And the dedication to eat meals containing mostly eggs for the next couple years. This entire process is slow and tedious, so if that sort of thing bothers you, buy the seed starter kit.
Here is a quick video on how to take your raw eggs and extract the goods inside, while also making sure to preserve your shell for your seedlings.
It took me about a month of quiche and omelets before I had as many eggs as I needed for my first round of seeds. I could have been more dedicated and ate strictly eggs for two weeks, but I was worried I'd never want to eat another egg again so we took our sweet time.
I am going to have to rebuild up my eggshell stash here for my second round of spinach and lettuce seeds, and then ANOTHER batch for my summer veggies as well.
That is a LOT of eggs people. Be prepared.
Once you have all your eggs you'll need to assemble the following.
Cleaned eggshells
Organic (ok, not true, but I recommend you get organic!) potting soil OR seed starter. I couldn't find seed starter like I wanted, so I went with potting soil.
Sharpie
Knife
Seeds
Something to contain the shell and dirt mess if you're doing this inside
Sunset Magazine, not required, but highly recommended reading!
Take your first shell and break away the opening to make it slightly larger. You don't want a little pin sized opening because it wont allow the seedlings to get enough light. Once your opening is larger, use your knife to poke a drain hole in the bottom of the shell.
Next take your eggshell and fill it nearly to the top with soil. You need to have room to add the 1/4" of cover dirt that will go over your seeds.
Set aside, and then rinse, lather, and repeat. I warn you, from the care it takes to open and wash and then store each shell, to the tedious nature of this seeding process if you are someone who is a little A.D.D., step away from this project RIGHT NOW. Just warning you.
Eventually you'll have filled all your shells. This will feel like a major accomplishment and I recommend you have someone around to high five you.
Once you have all your shells filled with dirt you can add your seeds. I put 2-4 seeds in each shell. Except for the one I took a picture of here where I got a little overly excited and added a million seeds. I will be needing to thin out this badboy for sure.
Do this seeding step a zillion times.
Once all your shells have seeds in them, grab a pinch of dirt (packets always say 1/4", I just do a pinch and call it a day) and cover all your seeds. Next I took my sharpie and wrote on my eggs so I'd know in the planting process exactly what was growing in each egg. Added benefit to eggshell starters!
Next you want to water these little guys. Seed starter kits have you soak the soil disks in warm water before you begin seeding, so following that idea you COULD pre-soak your soil in warm water before filling your shells, but I thought that would make a mess times 7,000 and so I skipped it. Here's to hoping something still grows.
You don't want to drown your seedlings and have the seeds inside the shells shift around too much, but you also need to make sure this first watering is a good one. I used the water filling device from our floor steamer to enable me to have a very controlled small stream of water so I didn't drown out one particular egg.
Lastly I cut off the top of the egg carton container to make it more compact for my windowsill, placed the seed starters in a western facing window (I learned from my moldy seds!) and stepped back to admire my hard work that was WEEKS in the making.
To keep my seeds moist I have a spray bottle I keep in the office, and once the top of the soil seems to be drying out I'll give all these guys a healthy spritz of water. Also, the great thing about using eggs is if you see that one of your shell walls is too high and possibly blocking out light you can just break off a little shell wall and instantly improve the conditions of your seeds.
When these are ready (these are my cold weather seeds like spinach, lettuce, onions, and spring flowers) you can dig your transplant holes, give the shell a squeeze to add some cracks to the shell and plop it in the ground!
You now have organic seed starters that took a bunch of time to make, but didn't cost you hardly a thing and will be good for your garden and the environment.
There you have it. May you all go forth and spread the hippie organic gardening love to you and yours!
I was going to give you a detailed account on what exactly I'm doing with these puppies, but then my sister and I went snowboarding.
And then I woke up the next morning and realized that I haven't worked out in over three months and that every single muscle in my body suddenly hates me and I could hardly sit upright, let alone follow through with my eggtastic plans.
Please tell me what part of snowboarding requires me to use the muscles between my boobs. When turning? Getting on and off the lift? While hanging out in the bar?
Also, who knew you could pull the muscle under your jaw, from snowboarding. Turns out you most definitely can. And when you do, it will suddenly become very hard to hold your head up all the way.
The only thing I can conclude from all these weird sore muscles is that either A. I am really really really really out of shape, or B. I look like a dying chicken while boarding which is why I managed to injure my jaw and middle boob while snowboarding.
Jury is still out.
In the meantime, enjoy this video. I had a fancy shmancyHD helmet camera with me that died about three runs into our trip. Meaning our only footage was us on the warm up hills. Which makes us look like lame sauce sissy wimps. Guess we can't all be bad asses.
Last summer Adam and I met my folks in ID for a long weekend at a lake house and I tried my hand at tubing. Which, turns out terrified me to death and really isn't my cup of tea.
Then today when I was installing my new version of iMovie that I have been working for MONTHS towards being able to install (ram upgrades, external hard drives, airportExtremes, Mac OX upgrades, people I have done it all for this little computer!) I discovered some lost raw footage.
Raw footage of me being an even bigger tool-bot than I was the last time I displayed my water-sports skills to you.
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