It can't be helped

The sun is shining. Marked in the calendar for this week: The vernal equinox, aka beginning of spring. My friends start talking seedlings. I say I'm going to wait til after a short trip in April. The nod and say 'uh huh'.
Who was I kidding???
I went to Home Depot for a slight upgrade of my lighting system, now that my freshly renovated basement has a great set-up for seed starting. The kids and I started getting very very antsy to plant, but this time, I did slow down enough to make some plant markers. One for each tomato. I'm also growing only 1 or 2 of a few varieties, except 2 kinds that I know will do great and that I have specific plans for.... Matt's Wild Cherries will hopefully form a tunnel for the kids in the front yard. Mountain Magic showed a really good resistance to the late blight at the local farm, so I'm hoping for the same here, of course.

Other starts today:

Scallions
Kale
Swiss Chards (Fordhook and Rainbow)
Amaranth (Golden Giant and last year's favorite, Burgundy)
Marigolds (only the beginning...)
Milkweed for the monarchs
Straw flowers (Helichrysum) because they're my old fashioned favorite
Early Sprout Purple Broccoli
Kohlrabi (Early White)
A few bell peppers
Husk cherries (aka Ground cherries, or 'candy' in our family)
A few lettuces
Climbing malabar spinach, which grows so slow but is so beautiful and delicious when it does

The kids got into it and we started a sort of garden journal in the form of a lap book. That will maybe deserve its own post sometime, we're having fun! We then went outside to play, where I had to scold them for starting a 'kids' garden' in the only sunny spot in the lawn, right atop the septic, because that's the only snow-free spot at this point. There were actual tears at the thought of having to wait a few more weeks...