A day late and a dollar short I got my seeds started for what I’m hoping will be an EPIC 2012 season in rooftop gardening shenanigans. My tomatoes are going to explode off the branches with flavor!

My peppers are going to get so big they’re going to crush curious guests… in their mouths! My Dwarf Siberian Kale is going to get… appropriately little! Panthy is practically jumping out of his skin.

Some people get extremely nerdy about their seeds. They fawn over the quaint packaging, rattle off the obscure names, and collect them in precious little files. I respect it to the fullest, it just ain’t for me. Don’t get me wrong, I love me some heirlooms and everything they stand for, I just hate planting them. I’m more of a dig a hole and dump a plant in it kind of guy. If I could somehow use a chainsaw to plant seeds, I just might.

Trying to get into the spirit, I pulled out an appropriately tiny notebook and a very fly Swiss pen and got down to the tedious business of planting and marking down exactly where each of the 144 seeds went.

Keeping a record is almost as important as planting the seed. Today I ate part of this mystery plant to see if it was a weed or the obscure Corn Dutch Salad I planted last summer. I think it was a weed. Hard to know, I don’t think anyone has ever eaten Corn Dutch Salad. Probably because it looks like a weed. Or tastes like one. Or is one?

After a quick soak, each tiny divot in these puffy little shit disks received a pair of precious seeds.

They’ll sit in the window until they start to sprout, after which my grow light will take over, combining its beaming light with the grooviness of this patterned cloth to make the magic happen.

Almost my entire flock of sweet veggies will emerge from these humble plastic trays; ground cherries, jalapeno peppers, tomatoes, cukes, eggplants and bunch of other exotic heirloom vegetables. Hard to believe actually. An entire season of obsession, dutiful watering, constant complaining, and occasional success; all from these little seeds. Maybe I better start showing them a little more respect.