How's It Growing: February 19, 2026

There’s a foot of snow still on the ground and we had an ice storm last night, but Spring is on my mind! Our annual order of seeds just arrived and the excitement begins. I’ve created a seed starting spreadsheet to calculate and group the seeds by dated to be sown. i have the soil ingredients ready to mix and now I just have to wait for the first date for finally come around, which for my list is March 2nd.

This year I’ll be trying out a new germination soil mix that I learned about from Floret Flowers in Washington. Floret is a grower that I greatly admire and we have purchased dahlia and zinnia seeds from them in the past. This particular soil mix includes a good quality germination soil, good quality compost (free of any possible weed seeds), bonemeal, blood meal, and kelp meal. The results in Floret’s trials of this mix were astounding so I’m eager to see if it works for us, too.

My goal this year for the garden is to keep it simple. As an avid gardener, this goal is a lot harder to achieve than it sounds, especially as I spend the year watching gardening shows and going to local nurseries! But it is good to have a goal. The idea is to limit the variety of plants that we try to grow and to stick to the tried and true. I’ll let you determine whether or not it looks like we were successful judging by our garden updates throughout this year.

If you are curious about our seed lineup, let me satisfy the itch and list our starting lineup. Most of these come from Johnny’s Selected Seeds, but a few are leftover seeds from Territorial Seeds.

Flowers

  • Calendula: Alpha

  • Celosia: Flamingo Feather

  • Comos: Apricotta, Versailles Red

  • Marigold: Durango

  • Eucalyptus: Silver Dollar

  • Snapdragon: Avignon Deep Orange, Avignon Lavender, Avignon Pink

  • Sunflower: Firecracker, Strawberry Blonde, Zohar

Vegetables

  • Beans: Amethyst, Tobago

  • Beets: Zeppo

  • Carrots: Candy, Coventry, Rodelika, Shin Kuroda

  • Cucumber: Diva, Striped Armenian

  • Eggplant: Calliope, Hansel

  • Greens: Bright Lights Swiss Chard, Red Veined Sorrel, Tatsoi

  • Herbs: German Winter Thyme, Munstead-type Lavender, Wild Marjoram

  • Peas: Sugar Ann, Royal Snap II

  • Peppers: Candy Cane Chocolate Cherry, Mad Hatter

  • Squash: Cinnamon Girl, Sophy

  • Tomatillo: De Milpa, Pancho

  • Tomato: Black Angel, Candy Bell, Cuzco, Japanese Black Trifle, Pink Berkeley Tie-Dye

Ok, after writing down that list, it doesn’t appear to be “simplified” but it does actually have fewer varieties than last year.

Another thing I’ll be doing this year after learning my lesson last year, I’ll be holding back some of the seedlings of tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers in my garden room until I’m absolutely certain that we’ve had the last frost. Yes, I’ll let myself get excited by the first run of warm weather and plant out some seedlings, but I’ll have my reserves in case mother nature is up to her usual tricks and decides to send in another frost to freeze dry my tender plants.

Here is the current look of our garden.

Kim LaPollaComment