Too early to start seeds

Lavender and daisies, last summer

It's too early to start seeds, except maybe peas, which I have never had any luck starting indoors. In fact, I pretty much gave up on starting any seeds indoors a few years ago. So why do I have a tray of seeds carefully placed in little planting pellets... in the back of my fridge?

My plans for the rose garden are going to take a lot of plants, especially along the border with the lawn. I'm ordering what I can find on sale, but I want to try growing some from seed too.

My husband gave me a packet of "True English" lavender at the winter holiday (Christmas, Solstice or whatever you celebrate). Lavender is apparently difficult to plant from seed, and does better if it is chilled for a few weeks. I bought columbine seeds, because the varieties I wanted weren't available as plants, and those also recommend chilling. And I've had annual poppy seeds in the fridge for years, collected from someone's garden and forgotten until I found the little film can buried behind condiments.

I planted some of each of those into a tray of plant pellets on Monday (Feb. 1), and will keep them in the fridge for about 3 weeks, checking occasionally to make sure they stay moist. The theory is that the moisture helps them germinate better than just putting the package of seeds in the fridge. I will direct sow the same types of seeds in the garden about the same time that I pull these out of the fridge - and see what I end up with.

I think my mistake in the past was trying to start seeds in the kitchen, which seems bright enough but probably isn't in the winter. Once they come out of the fridge, I'll try putting the seed tray in our very large bay window area, which should get plenty of light. The tray has a lid to keep in heat too. Hopefully the cats will leave it alone!