I’m going to head up to Walmart and grab some tomato seeds tomorrow morning. I found this guide of how to germinate the seeds with a moist paper towel and a plastic baggie. I think it will be nice to start from seeds this year. I also found this other guide which has some good advice, otherwise I’ll be winging it from my previous experience (3-4 years of tomato gardening, about 12 plants each year). Also if they have basil plants and/or seeds I want to get some of those going too because I love tomato, basil, and mozzarella (wish I could grow cheese).
I’ve been buying seedlings (like mini plants) from Linder’s the past years. I hope Walmart has a good variety of seeds, but I’m going to guess that they won’t. There is a hydroponics store downtown and an organic plant shop in the next town over, so I think I should also check those out for supplies. Supposedly the seeds only take a day or two to sprout, so I’ll also have to purchase some dixie cups or small pots for the sprouts. I plan on transferring them to pots or red solo cups once they get to a good size. Luckily I have a windowsill that gets a fair amount of light and is right above the heater. Hopefully the cold window doesn’t cause a draft of death.
I got this guy in the fall. He’s spent his life in the two solo cups (holes cut in the inner one for drainage) on the windowsill with mediocre care facing west all winter. He’s 3x bigger than when he started out and I’m going to put him in a bigger pot when I get the chance.
Good luck with your gardening adventure. I find that it has taken 5 days to a week for my tomato seeds to germinate.