 Hello and welcome to Getting Clean on the Prairies. It is now the 12th day of March. And according to my planning calendar that I have set up here, we are in between 10 and 11 weeks away from our last frost date here in Saskatchewan. So according to my planning calendar here, it's time to get some onions and celery started. So that's what we're going to do today. I'm going to show you how I'm going to be planting these up and get them growing under the grow lights. I'm also going to try some lupin flowers here. These are a perennial that are actually hardy to zone 3 right here in Saskatchewan. So these should be able to survive our harsh cold winters and come back every year. So I have some of these started in milk jugs using the winter sowing method and still had some seeds left. So I'm going to throw a couple of those in here today as well. So the two kinds of onions I'm going to be planting today and those are seeds that I got from a company in Manitoba called Heritage Harvest Seeds. And they specialize in rare and endangered heirloom vegetables, flowers and herbs. So I have gotten a few different varieties of seeds from them last year and I still have these onions that I did not plant last year. And according to what I've heard, onion seeds don't store well for very many years. So I'm going to try and use these all up this year and see how they do. So I'm going to be doing a tropina lunga onion. That is kind of an Italian red onion according to the pictures I've seen. It looks very pretty and is a nice red onion that you can use in salads and cooking. And the other one is the early yellow globe onion. This is like a big sweet onion that those kind of onion I buy all the time and use for just regular cooking. So I'm not a big lover of onions. I don't care for raw onion, but I thought these two kinds are basic ones that I would use in my home. And I think I'm hoping that they will do well. I've only planted onion bulbs in the past and it seems like, you know, they're about this big when they go in the ground. And then when I harvest them, they're about this big. So I've never really had much luck with them. So I'm hoping, you know, start these from seed. We've got some potting soil mixed up here. This is seed starting mix that I've added some of some worm castings to it for a little extra. Fertilizer in it. So I'm very anxious to try growing onions from seed to see how it goes. And the salary I'm going to try today is just a Utah green salary. Purchase these seeds from a local company and these have similar germination time as the onions. And I think it's the lupins. The reason I'm planting these all together now. So these we will try them. Another thing that I have never grown from seed or grown in my outdoor garden. If you've seen any of my crack key indoor growing videos, I've had success starting salaries from the stocks that you buy from in the grocery store. I've managed to start them rooting and grow some salary successfully using the crack key method. So I have some seeds. My's will try growing them outdoors. So I'm going to use these today for starting seeds. I picked these up at the dollar store for buck 25 for 15 of them. So they're super cheap. There are three inch plastic pot with the holes on the bottom. So I'm going to set them up in a tray so that I can bottom water them. I'm going to be setting this on a heated seedling mat as well to get them started. So we will get these filled up with some dirt now. So something that I learned about onions when I was doing some research on these is there are three categories of onions out there. And those are based on the hours of sunlight that they require to grow the best. And so there are long day onions, short day onions, and intermediate day onions. So here in zone three, Saskatchewan, Canada, we have very long summer days of long days of daylight. So the long day onion such as this one, the yellow globe, prefers and does best in 14 to 16 hours of daylight. This one here when I looked it up was considered an intermediate day onion, which prefers 12 to 14 hours of daylight. So these are best for zones 5, 6, 7. Long days are best for the lower zones like zone 5, 4, 3 or so. But I think both will do okay here in my region. Short day onions of course would be in the warmer regions to the south where they only require, I think it's 8 to 10 hours. And have less daylight hours. So they should work well here. And we will plant up first of all the long day ones. And it can be pretty generous with the amount of seeds that you spread into each. I'm going to do up I think three of these. So they are fairly big black colored seeds. So you just spread them in here. I'm not going to worry about how many I'm going to. Once they start germinating and growing, you just keep them trimmed up until you put them into the soil. They'll be easy to take apart and separate and plant into your garden. I don't think I'm going to get them all used up. I don't really want a ton of onions started, so I'm just going to stick with starting these three cells up. And the Lunga onion, the red one, seeds look very similar. It could almost be the same if you mix them up. So I'm going to just do up two. Now let's do three. I probably have enough. Here for three. So I did grow some red onions last year. And like I said, I'm not a fan of raw red onion. But I see how people like them on their salads and on their burgers. So what I did last year with my red onions is pickled them. And I have a video on how I did that. It was super easy and it kind of cuts down the bite. Onion softens them up a little bit and works great to put on your burgers. Different types of dishes that you would normally use of raw red onion. So check out that video. I'll leave the link below. So the celery seeds are super tiny. And again, I'm just going to sprinkle a pretty generous layer onto. They look just like, you know, a celery seed that you would get as a spice. So I'm just going to do one cell and we will separate them out. Hopefully we have a good germination. Now I was just thinking about how I want to mark these so I can keep track of them. I'm going to be covering these with a plastic dome until they germinate. So I can't really use any sticks or markers. So I think to start with I will just use a little bit of tape on each one. Some painter's tape and write the kind of seeds that's in there so that I don't forget. So here are the lupin seeds. They're quite big. And it looks like they don't sprout for 20 to 30 days. So I guess that's a lot longer than I thought the onion's celery should be with 7 to 14 days. And on the heated seedling mat they may germinate a little bit faster. So we will see how these go. And I'm just going to spread out these seeds into two different cells here. I can space them a little more easier because they are bigger. These remind me the reason I really like these. I went on a road trip from Toronto to Saskatchewan and we drove through northern Ontario to go around the Great Lakes. You kind of have to head way up north and get around them to get across to the prairies. And that's one thing I remember on that road trip was there was beautiful lupins growing wild in the ditches. And they were very pretty and so I'm hoping that I can get some beautiful lupins going here in my yard as well. Okay so I got everything planted up here and I have just used green painters tape with the name of what I have on here. And to keep track of them. So I'm just going to give it a very light layer of more potting soil. I can use vermiculite as well. I've been using that, trying that as well. I think for this potting soil will work good. Now I just, I have watched a video on, I think it's called Gay Peace Grub. She's a great gardener that I watch all the time because she gives you how to's on starting pretty much everything. So I always look to her videos for different tips and tricks on starting seedlings. She's in a much warmer zone than me but for the most part we can use the same processes. So what she did to start her seeds instead of putting them directly under a light right away. She covered them with plastic to keep the humidity in and just kept them in darkness until signs of germination. And then at that time exposed them to some grow light. So we're going to try that as well. I got this jiffy dome piece from another growing pot. So I'm going to use that because it fits these nine cells perfectly. And we're going to go put them under the grow lights with the grow lights off. But I'll just show you how I'm going to set them up and get them ready for germination. Okay, so we have the seedlings here now in my underneath the grow light. And before I cover it up with the plastic dome, I'm just going to give it a good soaking. And as you can see here, I got the seedling heat mat plugged in. And I'm just going to set the tray right on there. And I'm going to put this dome on top to help keep the moisture in. And I'm going to just keep it in darkness just by covering it with this towel here. And I will be checking on it daily just to make sure it hasn't dried out. And as soon as I see some germination happening, I will remove the dome and get these lights going. Have them probably only, you know, an inch or so away from the seedlings so that they don't get too leggy. So I will be checking in on these every day to see how they are doing and when they germinate. As you can see, I still have a lot of space left here to get growing. I think next on my calendar to start planting is tomatoes and peppers, which I have so many of. I really have to sit down and look at how much space I have and how many of each I can try. So please don't forget to like and leave me a comment below. And if you haven't already, subscribe to my channel. Click on the notification bell so that you don't miss out on the next video. Thank you for watching and have a great day.