Gardening without Plastic

I am getting really excited about my new garden.  We have to wait on the garden planning folks though.  Since we need a major redesign on our whole yard we called in the experts last fall.  But they can't get started until April. Sob.  Though, the guy assured me he was going to try to make it so I can get my tomatoes in not too late.

I wish I knew how to turn this photo!

I ordered a bunch of seeds from a North Carolina company called Sow True Seeds.

And I'm thinking I will turn my dining room into a seedling factory for a while.

We are in zone 7a, as far as I can figure.  And the last frost date is some time in late April or occasionally early May.  So my general target date is May 1st.  That means if I want to start tomatoes, I should probably do so about six weeks in advance (I think I read six to eight, but since I am not even sure if my raised beds will be ready quite that early, I'm going with six weeks.)  So I am aiming to start all this the week after St. Patrick's Day.

I have been reading up on how to avoid those plastic seedling trays.  I plan to use cardboard egg cartons.  I saw a video that uses coffee grounds too.  I need to contact my compost service to see if I can get some nice composted soil from them.

Besides egg cartons, you apparently can use the cardboard tube from toilet rolls too!

There is also a company that produces biodegradable seedling pots.

My beginning collection of egg cartons and toilet paper tubes!

Now I just need to find trays that will hold any water, so I don't damage my nice dining room table.  I also need to make this whole seedling production thing portable because I am going to probably need my dining room table for Passover and Easter.  Maybe it will be warm enough I can put them outside on the back porch temporarily.  Or I could use the study but we still haven't cleaned it out - absolutely chock full of junk right now!