Seed Starting Indoors and A Recipe!

A week ago I started 14 flats of flower seeds in the cellar under grow lights.  By day three, half of the flats had sprouted.  A week later, all have but the flat of sweet peas which have a longer germination period.  It's so exciting!  I have a lot of pots to fill this spring outside and borders as well, so I started flower seeds for the kinds I want to have tons of and some flowers are just hard to find in local nurseries like tagetes (marigold) Lemon Gem and gomphrena Fireworks.  Those two I like to mass plant.  We ordered grow lights from Green State Gardener out of Vermont and Dan assembled them in the cellar and there they will remain to use for years and years.  When I lived in Kingston NH, I started thousands of seeds every February and March in a huge hall that was about 25 feet by 10 feet with a wall of windows -  about 30 flats or more and I made my own grow lights from pieces of 6 by 1 wood, rope, florescent lights and many extensions cords.  I used bricks to stack the board ends and raise them as the plants grew.  It was a royal pain to set up and even worse to take down but it was economical both in the set up and sheer quantity of plants started versus purchased and just having all that green in the hallway during some dreary days of winter and early spring was heartening.   My neighbor, Kim, across the street would call me as soon as the lights went on (and stayed on 24 hours a day) to exclaim that he knew spring was coming because my hall lights that faced his house were lit up and it gladdened him.

 Some seeds are so dang tiny that thankfully, they are coated and dyed so you can see them.  In the case of nicotiana seeds which I planted (no seed picture provided), they were neither coated nor dyed and were the size of grains of sand and it's almost impossible to just grab one seed per cell or to even get them off your finger.  I just kind of flick them and let them land.  If you scroll back up to the very first picture you will see that those tiny grains of sand seeds have sprouted where they landed!

 Tagetes seeds

 One of my favorite annuals; grow in masses, you can eat the blossoms, they smell like lemon (foliage and flowers), they have ferny foliage, and they bloom their hearts out for months until killed by frost.

 And old flat head screwdriver works great to push seeds down the requisite 1/4 inch.

 The sweet peas seeds are here under a different and separate grow light - I needed one more and found this wee one at Walmart!

 Each of those flats holds 72 seed cells.

 Incubating!

By the way, I love our cellar.  I probably go down there ten or more times a day year 'round.

 Here are the boxes of wrapped dahlia tubers overwintering near the door of the bulk head doors.

 My work bench where lots of fun happens.

 The "appliance center" and 4 fridges and freezers.

 Food and paper goods storage.

Other yummy and lovely things going on:
I ate the salad below for days, sometimes twice a day, with the Easter ham leftovers.  Greens, diced veggies, ham, sundried tomatoes, a fried egg and fig balsamic dressing.

As for painting I did on a few rainy days, here are bright pops of color - one is hanging in the master bedroom and I love the pop of orange against the golden yellow wall, and the other is an abstract I made up to go in the King room to replace a drab large watercolor I have had and disliked for years.  I really love the mix of contemporary and old.

 The swirls in the pattern at this angle make the frame seem bowed in this picture but it's definitely not.  I like the look of extending the paint on to all sides even if I'm going to frame it after.  Old watercolor below - I'm glad to see it go!

I love the mix of contemporary with old!

Now for a recipe.  I made some really easy and super chocolatey cookies yesterday to eat on sugar Sunday while we watched the semi-annual General Conference.  They are crunchy on the outside and creamy dreamy on the inside.  And not tooth achingly sweet either.  If you love dark chocolate and nuts, you will adore these.

Chocolate Decadence Cookies ( adapted from the recipe by Alice Medrich)

2 eggs
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 cup flour
8 ounces bittersweet chocolate broken up (or bittersweet chocolate chips - not Nestle!)
2 Tbl unsalted butter
2 cups chopped pecans or walnuts (I used pecans)
1 heaping cup of good quality chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 and parchment line or grease 2 large baking sheets

Melt chocolate and butter in microwave or in saucepan on low heat.  Meanwhile, beat eggs, sugar, vanilla and salt together until thoroughly mixed.  Add in semi cooled melted chocolate, nuts, flour and baking powder all at once.  Stir until well combined.  Then add in chocolate chips.  The batter will become stiff.  Drop by large tablespoonfuls 1 and 1/2 inches at least apart.  Bake 10 to 12 minutes.  Cool completely before you eat these.  They are better the cooler they get and especially at room temp.  And straight out of the freezer too!  YOU CAN MAKE THESE GLUTEN FREE BY SUBSTITUTING THE FLOUR WITH 3 TBL CORNSTARCH.  These are like an intense brownie with a crunchy, chunky interior.  Enjoy!!

Kind of ugly but so so so lovely tasting!