Clump transplanting & Critter's seed starting tips

Hey Critter,

I've been reading some of your threads on seed & cutting propagation and it became quite apparent that you have a lot of knowledge on this topic. I was wondering if you leave your heat mat on 24 / 7 for seed germination. We are currently having a week of warmer weather with nightime temp's in the low 50's. (although the week before it was the lowest of the season in the 30's) Our daytime temp on Sunday surely was in the 70's.

I am trying my hand at germinating seed using a heat mat for the first time. I too ordered my mat from Parks but I did not order the thermostat (at least not yet--that may come). My first attempt is using a Park's seed dome. Are you familiar with these? Have you ever used one? If you have, do you keep a small quantity of water in the bottom of the dome? I would think this would keep the sponges from drying out. I also have the vents open, but am wondering if there ever is a time that you should remove the lid on the dome.

Hope you don't mind me asking. I am watching several threads on heat mat use etc. Would just like to know your opinion since it has become very obvious that you are well versed on the subject.

Thanks!

Patty

I leave my heat mats on 24/7, but I do have a thermostat (generally set between 78 and 80'F). I think Park's says their seedling heat mats will raise the soil temp. 10-15 degrees above ambient temperature... I take that to mean that if your room gets to 75 degrees, you pots could get up to 90 degrees, which likely could cook your seeds to death. So I'd suggest turning them off on warmer days -- or getting a thermostat. You could also put a little thermometer down into the potting mix to see how warm your mat is making the soil, and that will give you a better guesstimate.

:-)

lol I always knew guesstimate was a word! IO1 and I where talking this morning and she has dill coming up (lucky her) and we got to talking about how do you tell when dill is ready to pot up?

DeBaggio includes dill in his list of herbs that he says benefit from the clump transplanting method described above. He says that the little plants are ready to be potted up from the seedling tray when they have one or two sets of true leaves... mostly, I think you don't want to wait until the little seedlings have become rootbound and very tangled together... If you handle them by their rootballs or by their upper leaves rather than trying to grasp their tender little stems, they should be OK.

I'm loving his book...but since he didn't show a dill plant as a seedling I didn't know if you could really tell the second set of leaves or if it was humm all dilly leaf looking. I've just started three more trays, all using his method and it will be so much easier to transplant these. Last batch was jiffy pellets and that was no fun!

I just want to add that I've only used this clumping method once, and it was with Maximillani Sunflowers. It worked great. So easy too, you could actually just take sections and plant them where you want them in different areas of the yard and they are already rooted.

Thank you for suggesting the herb book. I am just going to start my basils this year and will start them in small meat trays. Hopefully it is not too late to start them indoors.

Thank you ..

A.

In your zone, you probably have such a long growing season that I don't think it's imperative that you plant out basils etc one the earliest possible date... they'll do fine! I've got a few early ones started now, but I won't be planting out until Memorial Day, so mine will go into 2 inch pots (later sowings will got into 48 cell trays). Remember to pinch the seedlings early and often! I hope you do pick up DeBaggio's book -- it's wonderful!

Just something I've seen around on the net... the polymer moisture crystals aren't good for seed germination and seedlings. From what I've read... they provide too much water. I've never tried it with any of my seeds personally so I can't say I have experience with that ... but just thought I'd pass it along as stuff I've read. I do however use polymer moisture crystals other plants.


Take care,
Donna

I've been adding them to my mix for seed starting trays and for seedling pots for several years now, with excellent results. In my experience, they seem to help keep the mix from getting too soggy in case of overwatering. I think part of the trick might be not to exceed the recommended amount (1 oz, or about 1/4 cup of crystals per 5 gallons of potting mix). With the crystals, the mix stays more evenly moist, actually a little more on the dry side (without wilting the plants)... I don't have to water every day, either, which is a bonus for me.

Watersorb.com used to offer a small size of the polymer crystal that was nice for seed starting trays and very small pots because you didn't have to worry about the soil heaving around in the pot as a couple of crystals expanded to half the size of a pencil eraser... I'm almost out of the small crystals, and I guess I'll put some of the medium ones into my coffee grinder or something to see if I can reduce their size.

Probably it's like peat pellets or so many other things -- some people love the moisture crystals, some people hate them.

I like the moisture crystals, but have started using them mixed into only the potting mix in the bottom half of my containers in order to coax the plants into a deeper root system. I use regular potting mix on the top half of the pot. I don't know for sure if I am accomplishing what I'm hoping for, but it does seem to make sense.

For seed starting and seedlings, I mix them throughout all the mix. For containers, I use them in most of the mix in the pot, but I will sometimes top off the pot with a couple inches of potting mix without moisture crystals... this is mostly for appearance, so I don't get any big odd looking jello bits of waterfilled crystals on the surface. There's a really good thread on water movement in containers ("stickied" at the top of the container gardening forum) where this question was asked, and the answer seemed to be that plant roots would naturally grow downward without "extra" water deeper in the container.

If anyone is needing to buy some of Watersorb there is a co-op going on. The co-op is being seen over by Wvdaisy and LhasaLover.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/697540/ for information.
http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/698140/ for ordering.

If you miss the co-op, the watersorb site has some good prices for direct orders also.... I like that they include shipping in the price, up front. http://www.watersorb.com/index.htm

The co-op prices are better unless you need 50 pounds at a time (I just got a huge box to split with another local DGer)... but even the smaller bags are more reasonable than buying the containers of "Soil Moist" or whatever brand at the store.

This thread has become such a great centralization of germination info, that I'm adding 2 more cents from EmmaGrace and me - it's a wonderful step-by-step explication of the coffee filter/baggy method of germination.

Although it was originally written for morning glories, it can adapt to many other seeds, I think. As seeds get smaller and smaller, perhaps soak less and less (or not at all in some cases). Many large seeds often benefit from nicking, and Emma's advice tells you exactly how to do it (what to do pay attention to during the process, which part of the seed to nick, etc.)

Hope sticking this here is alright - there's bound to be some overlap - but it might help someone new to the process.

http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/p.php?pid=3303432

Oh, nice -- thanks! I like the coffee filter (or paper towel) and baggie method, especially for germinating just a few seeds or seeds I'm uncertain about... it's effective, and it's much easier to keep an eye on the seeds. (I know I'm not the only compulsive person who keeps poking into pots of potting mix checking for signs of germination... it's much easier to look for those little sprouting "tails" in a folded over coffee filter!)

Critterologist, just found this thread and your articles on germination -- so helpful. Thank you!
I had one more question and though the answer might be good info to keep in this thread:
How do you prepare your seed trays for re-use?
I had great luck with seed starting last year, but it was my first, so now I need to get the trays ready for this year (heaven forbid I do anything like clean and disinfect them when I get done with them in the spring )
Thanks!

It's a good idea to clean and disinfect trays and pots before you re-use them, especially when you're starting seeds indoors. Leftover fungal spores can bring you to grief with damping-off. I'm sorry, I know you were hoping for an answer like, "don't worry about it, just get them out and fill them with potting mix!" I often use last year's plastic cell packs for winter sown seedlings, and I'm less fussy about cleaning pots for re-use outside, unless I know I've had a problem.

No, I was kind of figuring that one needed to do that, just wondered what you recommend for disinfecting -- the hydrogen peroxide solution? I know some disinfectants are inactivated by "organic matter" (learned this in cleaning dog kennels, hence the quotes ), so do they need to be scrubbed really good with a brush first? Any soap? Then do you soak in disinfectant, or dip or spray?

Thanks!

Although sometimes I'll just go with a soapy swish, the best bet is a dunk in a bleach solution... some people use it as strong as 10%, but I figure a couple of glugs at the bottom of my bucket should do the trick. Bleach breaks down most organics, so it should kill bacteria, fungal spores, insect eggs, etc.

To disinfect your skin takes about 30 seconds, I understand to disinfect other surfaces takes about 15 minutes. Straight bleach might be able to kill everything on contact, though

Good point -- "quick dunk" was an unfortunate choice of words. Pots do need to soak. Thanks!

I've always used Lysol spray -- the old fashioned kind -- to disinfect pots. I wash them using hot water and a brush, then spray with Lysol. 10 minutes and they're disinfected.

*bumping up* because it's that time of year again!

I've got an article on the schedule for this Thursday about sowing and clump transplanting. There's a little photo tutorial on transplanting clumps of basil seedlings that I hope will be helpful.

I've tried to incorporate a lot of the information on this thread into my "Seed Starting 101" articles on lights, heat mats, and, now, sowing & transplanting. There's also an article on preventing damping-off. Clicking the "for more articles by Jill" link at the bottom of any of my articles will take you to links for the other articles.

:-)

Thanks! I always get alot out of your articles and posts!

Hi Jill and company - I love this thread and share it a lot. So, to have many useful tidbits relating to germination all in one spot, I hope y'all don't mind if I stick in a few resources giving specific directions for germinating seed of a wide variety of individual plants. It's been a while since I used all of these, so let me know if any of these links don't work.

Germination Links:

http://www.robsplants.com/seed/germination.php
http://tomclothier.hort.net/
http://www.onrockgarden.com/
http://www.kadel.cz/flora/kvRod.html This link hasn't been working lately, but it is so good that I leave it here in case anyone can assist in getting it going again.
http://www.b-and-t-world-seeds.com/index.htm
http://www.rmrp.com/
http://www.rareplants.de/shop/default.asp?
http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/germination.html
http://www.backyardgardener.com/tm.html
http://earthnotes.tripod.com/index.htm

Two excellent guides to germination in print are:
Seed Germination Theory & Practice by Norman C. Deno, 139 Lenor Drive, State College, Pennsylvania 16801 USA
(This was meant to be a statistical study of germination, but is excellent for us gardeners)

Park's Success with Seeds (1978) There's a new edition out now - don't know how it compares with the original - the company's seed selection has declined terribly.

Jill, I'm starting to feel like a pack rat storing seed-starting nuggets in your thread - ya can't keep a good thread down, I say - lol

Those aren't just "nuggets" -- they're gems! Thanks for adding those links, Bluespiral!