Yes soak them and totally cover them with soil. plant them as deep as the seed is wide. Keep the soil moist so they can burst through the outer coating My Nasturtiums, soaked and planted from seed are just peeking through the soil now. If you plant now in a month they will be blooming

Yes, you can start them now from seed, anytime between now and about early Sept. I personally would say morning sun and afternoon shade to avoid the soil baking on hot days and drying out too much, but I'm not home on the weekdays to tend to them. Pots/trays/cell packs all would work. As far as coming true to seed, hard to say. Genetics is always a mystery to me. Many things come close to the parent, in my experience, not necessarily exactly the same but similar. Every once in a while, something is radically different in some way, but that has been the rare exception in my experience.

I second what Bill Vincent said. The drywall MUST come down. It’s done wrong. It needs to be either cement board on walls + Kerdi membrane, or do Kerdi board on walls + Kerdi strips. I prefer cement board + Kerdi membrane as it’s super rock solid. If a heavy person falls into it, it’s not breaking. Kerdi board isn’t quite as rock sturdy. Shower pan, should be Kerdi shower system. Or if needs to be custom mortar shower pan due to size, then ok, but make sure it’s waterproofed. ===== If the builder refuses to correct this clown work, contact the state licensing board. As a licensed HIC (and PTC) contractor myself, nothing is more shameful than a contractor that won’t correct or stand by his work. It’s one thing if the workers did something behind his back that he didn’t approve of, and then the owner/builder offered to fix it once he found out… but as the owner of the company, it’s infuriating that he would be informed that they used drywall in a shower wall, and then him not immediately be offering- no, INSISTING- on fixing it free of charge. Absolutely unacceptable he wouldn’t fix it. It’s crazy to me that he’d hide behind “I already paid my drywall guys”. Ok, so he’s gonna let your shower rot and mold from the inside, and get insects or god knows what else? Even a Kerdi membrane over drywall doesn’t fix the issue. Water finds a way even with perfect waterproofing. The backer board needs to be cement board, or Kerdi board, not drywall. ===== As for the owner whining about how he paid his guys: There’s plenty of ways you get drywall guys to fix shoddy work. If they’re subs, let them know you won’t hire them again if they don’t fix it. If they’re employees, simply send them the next day to fix it. If they’re subs and still refuse to fix it, take them to small claims. Heck, tell them you’ll contact every company in your entire state with their photograph and tell them “don’t hire these clowns, they put drywall in a freaking shower”. And if none of that works, simply take the L, pay out of pocket to fix the shower, and then don’t hire those losers again. Build a quality culture at your company, where you have employees & subs who take pride in their work, continue their education, pride themselves on knowledge and intelligence, and want to do things the right way. Weed out workers who are lazy, unethical, or just not smart. You need to fight hard to respect your clients and do quality work. Yes, I know that “customer service standards” have gone down in recent days. You can’t even get fast food with a correct order half the time. People don’t even say thank you when you tip them. Etc. But on your jobsite, as the owner, you need to enforce quality work and good behavior from your employees and subs. Period. You need to have a conduct handbook. You need to have detailed workmanship requirements that (in my opinion) should not only meet, but EXCEED Aka be better than, code requirements. You need to do everything you can to give the customer the best experience.

This is what I did last year and it worked well: -Bought some 14inch tall and 4x8 ft raised beds in wood. Filled them with store bought soil mixed with some of the compact clay from the garden. -Sowed tomatoes, peppers, melons and cucumbers (heat-tolerant species) inside in January. -Sowed Basil, Zinnia, Amaranthus and Nicotiana in February. -Direct sowed beans, salad, peas. -Bought some herbs which I planted out directly. -Planted out most of it in the middle of March. -Vegetables, tomatoes, and cucumbers got harvested. Most of it died in July. (Except a tomato specie called "Matts wild cherry tomato" which was very heat tolerant (but also quite unstoppable,weedy, overwhelming plants and self seed wildly!). -The peppers did I actually harvest until Christmas (had to plant them in a flowerbed- ran out of space). -I will full heartedly recommend Zinnia for the Texas gardens. They was a blast ! Flowered along time. I haven't seen the SVBs, and they sounds like a really serious treat. Though I haven't actually Zucchini, but three types melon and cucumbers. Sounds like a terrible pest. -I bought some plants too. Find a good garden center and use some dollars on something exciting. Lots of fun with a small investment. I bought a Passionfruit Plant. Its a tad invasive, but I've got loads of Passion Fruits this fall and winter. Very healthy and very excotic for a Scandinavian like me. -Good Luck! I write about my garden in Houston here.