For me, getting seeds to germinate inside is the easy part when starting from seed. When it’s time to harden them off and transplant them outside, that’s when things get tricky. Some seedlings are just not up to the task, sometimes the weather doesn’t cooperate, and sometimes pests and other animals ruin my gardening dreams.

I’ve spent the last few weekends transplanting my seedlings. Right now it’s early enough in the season where I feel comforted by the fact that if everything dies I still have time to start again. But still, let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.

If you missed it, you can check out my garden plan here. The summary is that I’m planting almost all of my veggies in my raised beds. The only veggies that are going in pots are the peppers. I also have a handful of herbs and flowers that are going in pots.

Prior to planting, the raised garden beds were weeded, lightly tilled, and covered in 1-2 inches of compost. (Some day I hope that compost will come from my worm factory, but for now I simply bought it from a local nursery.)

Below are my prepared beds with most of their seedlings. (Please note the volunteer celery in the front bed – what luck!)

For all my plants, I’ve planted multiple seedlings for now. My plan is to thin them out after being transplanted outside for a week or two. Anyways, that’s enough of my jibber jabber… below are pictures of my plants/seedlings. Enjoy!

Parsley
One of my parsley plants from last year survived the winter so I’m keeping it around to see how it does for a second year. And I now have an additional three parsley plants.

Lime Basil

Basil

 

 

Marjoram

Oregano

 

Summer Savory

 

Lovage

 

Sage

Rosemary
One from last year and two new seedlings.

Thyme 
One from last year and three new seedlings.

 

Lemon Balm

Spearmint 
Some from last year, and one new seedling this year.

Delphinium

Dill and Chile Peppers
You’ll notice that my dill seedlings are very leggy –  I don’t feel confident about their future…

Sweet Peppers
I transplanted my sweet peppers two weeks ago.

At first they did great. Then I came outside to this.

I can’t say for certain, but I’m fairly sure some bug or critter had a nice time dining out in my garden. You can see that it looks like something just bit off the whole top of the plant. And there are the remnants of a half-eaten leaf in the bottom right corner of the picture.

Ugh.

San Marzano Tomatoes

Eggplant

Marigold
I intended to put these guys in pots, but my artichoke is growing to one side of the bed, so I decided to stick the marigolds in along the other side.

Bells of Ireland
It looks like I’ll be redoing these. The seedlings never looked healthy from the beginning. When they were inside they were too leggy and started falling over.

So I transplanted them to pots very early on and started hardening them off early.

And still they got leggy and, once again, fell over. In the last week they officially died. Sad times.