Obtaining Seedling Materials, Planting Eatables

What could be more fitting than starting my garden at the beginning of April? So, this afternoon I journeyed out to Plantworks (http://www.plantworksnyc.com) to see what I could gather for the project. A green little hole in the heart of the East Village, Plantworks offers as close to "everything" a gardener could want as you can get in Manhattan, though perhaps that's not saying much. Still, plants, dirt, containers, fertilizer you'll find along with somewhat helpful workers.

Walking into Plantworks, I came right to the seeds. Perfect! I picked out veggies and herbs first, then flowers. Not too many because I should start conservatively. I got some potting soil and jiffy pots. The worker there was also kind enough to shuffle into the back room and find me a tray for my starter pots, between puffs of his cigarette. So here's the list:

Herbs:
Sweet Basil - Germinates in 7-14 days; Matures in 40 days
Oregano - Germinates in 10-20 days; Matures in 90 days
Rosemary - Germinates in 14-28 days; Matures in 85 days

Veggies & Fruits:
Sugar Baby Watermelon - Germinates in 7-10 days; Matures in 75 days
New Zealand Spinach - Germinates in 14-21 days; Matures in 65 days

Flowers:
Marigolds - Germinates in 5-8 days
Poppies - Germinates in 7-10 days
Cosmos - Germinates in 8-15 days
Lavendar - Germinates in 10-20 days

Tonight, I planted all of the eatables, because I am waiting for my Water-Keep (www.water-keep.com) super-absorbent polyacrylamide water crystals to come in the mail for the flowers. I won't use them on veggies because I'm a litttttle scared of neurotoxin.

Here's a look at some of the seeds. Unfortunately I forgot to take pictures until after I'd already seeded all of the cosmos, poppies and lavendar. Poppy seeds look just like they do on bagels. Lavendar seeds look like Rosemary seeds but smaller, though not as tiny as Oregano seeds. Cosmo seeds look like little curved spikes.