WEEEEE!!!!!

OK...so I've received two of my seed catalogs!!!! Yippeeee!!!! Now my question is, what is the best way to begin my seedlings? I see so many different choices of products to use to begin seedlings. Do I buy the little paper molder that allows me to make pots out of newspaper? Buy the self-watering system? What? This is my second garden, but my first time growing my owns seeds.

Any suggestions would be much appreciated!

You've opened a huge can of worms with that question because everyone has their own "way". Really - ask 10 gardeners how they start seeds indoors & you'll get 11 answers - lol!!

My system is simple. I use plastic 6--packs nestled in plastic trays that have slightly ventilated clear plastic covers to fit. I fill them with regular soilless potting mix, plant, & when the seedlings appear they get uncovered & placed underneath a regular double-bulb fluourescent light set about 2" above the emerging plants.

This all takes place in any upstairs warm, brightly lit, & fairly unused bathroom.

Depending upon how many plants you want you can use a couple of empty egg containers with a tiny drain hole in each pocket and fill with Jiffy Seed Starting mix and put two or three seeds in each cell and when they sprout do as Breezy suggests and put them under a flourescent lite or buy a Gro-Lite if you are going to do like I do and raise everything from seed or use a 72 cell pak with a tray beneath to hold excess water if you need larger amounts as I do.

But first tell us what you are going to plant and how many adult plants would you like to have?

I use foam cups planted 3 seeds in each and then thin out to the strongest plant or transpant out to other cups. This gives them lots of room to grow roots. I keep them in a sunny window the whole time from seed to harded off. Just me doing it the same way my grandfather does!

This is what I am growing:

Tomatoes: Ed's fat plum, tomatillos, beefsteaks, big beef, banana legs and hawaiian currant

Carrots
Pole Beans, garden sweet peas
Lettuce (two types)
Eggplant (hybrid ichiban)
spinach
Cucumbers (straight eights)
celery (tall utah)
Collards (georgia)
Basil
oregano
Watermelon (crimson sweet)
corn (maybe, didn't have good luck with this last year so I may not grow it, but if I do it will be silver queen)

Because of space (I am very creative with it) I will only be growing about two or three of each of these plants.

I was thinking of buying the peat pots from the Burpee catalog. They are $8.50 for 48 of them. I don't have one of those lights, but my laundry room gets wonderful sunlight most of the day. I'm hoping that will do because those lights are EXPENSIVE.

Noobiegardener - you don't need a pricey "grow light" - just a regular fluorescent "shop light". Both the fixture & the bulbs are really cheap to buy at Lowe's or Home Depot, & depending on how you situate it, you can get away with just one double-bulb fixture. I grew literally hundreds of flower & veggie seeds last year just using one 4-foot long double-bulb fixture & my windowsills.

Breezy:

Thanks so much. I will have to look online to see what they have or just visit the store one of these days to buy the light. Then I just angle it so that it shines on all the pots? Is that how it works? Or would I have to rotate the plants so that they each have time under the light?

What I did last season - & don't laugh guys - was just lay the fixture propped up by 2 even stacks of old books at each end, on the glass-topped dressing table in my upstairs bathroom. Probably a fire hazard, I know, but the fluorescent fixtures are quite cool in temp, & I only turned the lights on at night & only when I was home. And the bulbs themselves were nowhere near actually touching the books. I also set this up in the bathroom, which is a fairly fireproof room.

I was able to fit several large trays of 6-packs underneath that light, & would just move the packs around to make sure they all received a decent amount of light to keep the seedlings from leaning. By adding books I was able to raise the fixture as the plants grew larger. The bathroom in question also has a large window & a large skylight, so the room receives a lot of natural light as well.

Now, I also have a large table in storage in the basement with a frame over it & lots of adjustable chains connected to 6-8 shop lights, but I haven't been able to utilize that yet since we've moved to this house. Perhaps the season after this one we'll have cleared out the basement enough for me to have my "real" seed-starting setup back again.

Again - I'm probably a complete idiot for doing it this way, & am not necessarily recommending the method, just noting it as something I did out of seed-starting desparation - lol!!

I use a shop light suspended by chains over an old table. And instead of a warming mat for the germination stage (for some seeds) I put the tray on TOP of the lamp. I also use books and upside-down trays to boost the shorter seedlings toward the light so the larger ones in other trays have room to grow. Works for me.

noobiegardener,

On your list of plants to grow I would guess that you would want to start some of the list indoors and not others. Tomatoes are started 6 weeks early as is celery, and perhaps herbs and eggplant.

Watermelon and lettuce 3 to 4 weeks. Cucumbers are touchy to transplant unless you do it skillfully [this includes minimum root disturbance and perhaps covering the plant for 2 days with an inverted plastic pot.]

Direct seeding of melons, squash, and cukes make them vulnerable to cucumber beetle's first generation for the seedling's first 3 weeks. They can ruin the seedlings in one or 2 days, Transplants bypass that period for the most part.

The main thing with transplants is to get adequate light to them from the VERY first hours after sprouting until outdoor planting and to water and feed them properly.

The pot-maker for newspaper works fine - I have one. After I bought it though, I found I could accomplish the same thing with a glass jar. I use the 12-oz. jelly jar for small seeds and a pint canning jar for larger seeds. There is also a folding technique that makes square pots. I want to try that technique as the pots would fit more compactly in the watering tray. Yuska

Yuska -- Doesn't the paper deteriate? How long do they last? A seedling needs to be in a pot for three or four weeks. Won't the water deteriorate the paper when you water it? Inquiring minds would like to know and save money.

You know, I have to add here that I had good luck this past season using toilet paper tubes cut in half for some of my seedlings. I just cut them in half, filled them with soil mix, nestled them tightly together in trays - everything from clean aluminum trays from Chinese food, etc. - & planted. They worked great & held up very well. When it came time to plant, I just gently loosened & even removed some of the cardboard along one side a bit to hasten decomposition, but left a little collar to deter cutworms.

The newspaper will deteriorate over time, but that is an advantage because when I am ready to set the pot in the ground it will decompose quickly and the seedlings can go on growing without having their roots disturbed. How long a pot holds up depends on how many layers of paper are used. I fold three strips of paper so that the folded edge will be at the top of the pot and that makes the pot six layers thick. Lasts long enough to be ready to set in the planting hole, at which point, I tear back any dry paper that could wick away needed moisture. I have also used the toilet paper tubes with some success, but prefer the pots because the larger circumference and greater depth allow more room for root development.

I start corn in toilet paper tubes that I stand up in a plant tray and fill, plant one seed in each. By the time they are up an inch they have a great root system (all the way to the bottom of the tube) and I just plant the whole thing being sure to get all of the tube covered with soil (no cutworms). My growing season is short so I plant varieties that mature in 70 days or less. This year I'm also going to lay clear plastic over the bed to warm the soil. There's not much point in starting heat loving seeds early in pots or whatever and then putting them out into cool soil.Corn needs to be planted in blocks instead of long single rows because it is wind pollinated. If you get blank spots in your ears of corn it is due to poor pollination.

How much light should the seedlings recieve per day?

If you can manage about 16 hours they'll be quite happy. When using gro lites, get the lights down to about 2 inches from the plants. The light is a bit stronger in the middle of the tube so you might want to move things around to keep them from leaning. I have left mine on 24 hours with no ill effects.

I too believe that 16 hrs. and even 24 are ok for most veggies. I still remember the "correction" by an expert [on another web site] about how some plants need some darkness. Well, that may be true for certain specialty things, but we were not talking about those. DG perhaps is less likely to bite you like that.

Thank you Indy and Mary for your responses. Here is the set up I rigged together. I was going to use expensive grow lights until I read some comments on this board. I caught the greenhouses on clearance for about 30 bucks each and the shop lights were about 10 bucks with the lights. I run my servers and workstations on the other side of the room. This combined with the fact that this is the only room at the top of my home makes it quite toasty.

My sed starting efforts are usually an annual disaster but i'm determined to do it right this year. So I have some questions:

I can put a standard flat on each sheld running horizontal to the lights which will give me space for 8 flats. But if I place the flats perpindicular to the lights, I can get 2 flats to a shelf. Would placing the flats perpindicular to the lights cause any problems such as leaning?

It seems that many old hands here employ the use of a fan as part of their seed starting regimen. What exactly is the purpose of needing a fan? Are there any rules as to when they should be turned on and for how long? I have 2 ceiling fans in this room but I am curious as to their role in the seed starting process.

Most of my flats have the clear plastic covers that fit on top of it. I assume this is to keep in mositue and humidity. Are there any crops that can be started without this cover or in uncovered small pots?

Thanks
BB

BB,
Fans help to prevent mildewy conditions and damp-off disease. Also they supposedly cause plants to root stronger as a defense against blowing away. Myself I don't use a fan but take the flats outdoors whenever possible and they get their breeze there. Not everyone can do that though.

Plants need to be very close to the lights and underneath if possible as they will lean to the light if not right under it.

Myself, I found that I did not need a covering on the seeds with the starting mix I use when I get it thourly wet initially and use plenty of heat to bring them up within 6 days.

Thank you Indy

I too do not use a cover but do use a small fan to provide a light breeze over the seedling, just enough to make them twitch a little. This also makes them grow a strong stem and a nice bushiness. BB I must say you have a great set-up.

Thanks Tplant.

I hope I can grow seedlings this year.

I have my wife to thank for this. we have a stiing room downstairs that gets excellent light. Floor to sieling windows etc.

I told her I was going to set up my nursery in there.

I wish I can say we had an argument about it. All I can say is that I was scouring the site for alternatives within 30 seconds LOL

What is it about wives? They can start and end any debate with a look.

Well, BB, wives consider the house as their "garden".....so your setup is mostly a temporary intrusion.

That's a very nice set up. A fan will make the stems of your seedlings stronger. A cheap and effective trick to prevent damping off is to spray the little plants with chamomile tea. I actually spray enough on them to water the plant, and I do this for the first couple of weeks, even watering where nothing has come up. The proportion is 1 chamomile tea bag to a quart of water, let it stand overnight and it's ready to use. No chemical smell to deal with!

Thanks Mary

How often should the fans be on?

I just leave it on all the time.

I start out each year with clean trays that have been washed with soap and water and bleach to disinfect. I use a seedstarting soil. You can buy it at most garden stores. Once you have planted your seeds, moisten the soil with a spray bottle. Always use warm water! Cover the trays with plastic wrap and put on a heating mat. Each type of flower and vegetable has its own germination time. It will say on the seed packet. Once most of the seeds are up, remove the plastic wrap, and keep the seedlings moist with a spray bottle of warm water. Put them under your grow lights and watch them grow. I don't start using air circulation until the first set of true leaves are devloped. That would be you second set of leaves. Here is a picture of the plants I grew last year from seed.. Good luck!!

I plant in individual pots for the most part and that way I can put a pot under lights right away [as soon as they pop up]. I put most of the starting mix into the pots...then water with warm water. Then I plant my seeds on top of the soil. Then I add additional soil on top of the seeds and water again. For this reason I don't need to top with plastic wrap as I thourally wet the soil the first time and I have very warm temps to bring them up quickly.