Seedlings, at a least a few of them, in seed starter boxes!

All week long seeds and seeds and seeds have arrived from various catalogs - but no seed starter to plant them in yet!  Then yesterday, f.i.n.a.l.l.y, the first seed starter box arrived.  So far I like it - time will tell how much grows.  I chose the Park Seed biodome seed starter planter kit.  Again, only ONE of the three I ordered arrived - hopefully the other two will arrive today.  FYI, last year I used the Jiffy seed starter covered trays, that I bought at Home Depot.  It was pretty easy BUT a little messy and the Jiffy plastic lid to cover the planting tray just wasn't tall enough to handle the larger sprouts.  In addition, perhaps because of my ineptitude, several seeds just didn't start, and mold became an issue.  This year, I did a bit more research, and solely because of the taller lid room, I chose the Park Seed catalog's bio dome brand so I could "whelp" the seedlings a bit longer.  I think it was a good sign that Park Seed was sold out of certain models of their biodome, but they push it pretty savvily in their catalog, and the potentially reusuable aspect is nice. 

More specifically, for you newbies like me, the Park Seed bio dome is a seed starter tray with a lid, and inside the tray fits a styrofoam-ish white holder that is reusable (or so they say), and inside those white styrofoam-ish trays goes individual "bio sponges" that will ultimately hold the seed and be transplanted with the seed.
 
Here is a picture of the tray and white styrofoamsih thing, and the bag of bio sponges that comes with it:

I chose the jumbo size bio sponges, to be placed in their jumbo dual tray model (ie, two side-by-side white styrofoamish things), because it seemed like the regular size bio sponges were a little small to start tomatoes, etc.  I figured more dirt can't hurt, right?

What I liked:  I had some pleasant surprises today when I planted this first bio dome seed starting box:

1.  You just put the dark brown "biosponges" in water for 15-20 minutes, and they plump up, but don't make a mess!

2.  Those brown sponges already have a little hole down the middle for putting the seeds, so easy to do, and again less mess, more speed.

3.  The lid really is tall, and it has little plastic vents.  Time will tell if the vents work at all, but it seems like a nice gimic at least.  I will say that the black vent things come off pretty easily, but my husband-the-engineer was able to put it all together again easily :)

4.  The whole kit comes with fertilizer for the kit, a little added bonus. 

Here is what the bio dome looks like as of 8am, when I finished planting the first box:

What I didn't like:  There really isn't a good place to put plant markers as to what seeds are planted where, so I made up a numbering system - the rows are A through G, and the columns 1-10.   I had a handy shoe box lid that I marked on while I planted seeds, and here is a picture of that lid, showing what I planted, and where - I noted the seed catalog source as well, so I can compare and contrast what does best:

I only planted a few of every variety...and still ran out of room quickly in the first seed starter box - AND LOOK HOW MANY TOTALLY UNOPENED  PACKETS I HAVE LEFT TO PLANT!  I am beginnng to wonder if three double bio domes will even be enough.  If a lot don't sprout, I will be out of luck, and out of sponges!

UNOPENED SEED PACKETS LEFT TO PLANT:

Of course, I am already checking, just a few hours after planting, to see if anything has sprouted yet!

Also, re seeds, I bought a mixed blend from Renee's Seeds of heirloom tomatoes and it really wasn't well done in terms of the quantity of seeds of each variety - I had only 4 seeds of Krim, while many more of the other two varieties (Persimmon and Constantolo), so I called Renee's and was VERY impressed - they immediately offered to send out a replacement pack that was more balanced re the Krim seeds, so bravo to them for that!  Renee's told me that they really stand behind their seeds, that's nice, I appreciate that.

Seedlings, at a least a few of them, in seed starter boxes!