Starting a Plant from Seed
As I talked about before, starting a plant from seed reduces the cost of your garden, gives you more choices and lets you set the growing conditions from start to finish (it’s nearly impossible to find a truly organic grown plant in stores).
Now it’s time to go over the how-to of seed starting:
- Choose your seeds. This may seem like a no-brainer but it is actually very important. Though you can start virtually any seeds indoors, you can’t always transplant them and they won’t always grow in your given environment. Some plants, such as root vegetables, do not like getting their roots disturbed, it can stunt their growth or cause abnormal growth patterns. This doesn’t mean you can’t transplant them, you just risk poor preformance and even possible death of the seedling. Cucumbers and squash are also on the list of questionable transplants. Personally, I do transplant these, but the preformance is generally better when they are sown direct. Other than transplant shock, you must also keep in mind whether or not you have a long or short growing season. If you check on the back of the seed packet (in most cases) you will find a ‘days to maturity‘ or something along those lines. It’s important to check your last estimated frost date and your first estimated frost date online and make sure you have the time to actually grow any vegetables to harvest. On top of that, is your climate warm enough? Is your garden sunny enough? Are you prone to droughts? Or is your climate very wet (like mine)? Some plants thrive in dry, scorching weather, others need constant wet. For example, I grow lowland rice in my trench where there is almost always a couple inches of water. Lowland rice requires this, as it’s paddy rice. If I didn’t have my wetland area, I would have to consider growing upland rice, or even grow something else entirely.
- Once you have chosen your seed, look at the back of the packet for any information on when to plant it. It will often say, ‘indoors sow 6-8 weeks before your last frost date’ (or something along those lines). This is less likely on packages for root vegetables or brassicas as they are not recommended to sow inside or don’t need it (brassicas can be winter sown and don’t necessarily need early sowing). For example I am zone 5b and our last frost date is June 3rd. I’m just going to count backwards from June 3rd and start my seedlings inside on April 8th. I would also give myself the extra two weeks because I know my growing season is only 103 days so I will want pretty robust plants in the ground at that time if I want a good harvest.
- Choose your growing apparatus. Now when most people say this, they just mean preparing soil, but before we even get to that, what are you housing that soil in? Are you using plastic pots from store, coir pots, are you making paper pots or soil blocking? There are tons of different methods of holding these little seeds and soil and there are pros and cons to each. If left in coir pots for too long the roots and become intangled and though they say they break down, I am going to tell you a lot of the time, they don’t break down quick enough. The store-bought plastic pots can be good and bad. Obviously plastic is bad, but if you pick a sturdy brand you may be able to use these for years to come. With that said, you wouldn’t want to sell a seedling with a sturdy plastic pot because those generally come at a higher cost. If that’s your end game it’s better to buy the cheap plastic 4-6 cell packs or buy some larger single wholesale pots. Paper pots are a good idea when it comes to economy and environment but it does have the opposite problem as the coir pots, it can break down very easily, so it’s better to double wrap them and not to let them sit in water. Lastly, my favorite is soil blocking, though it can be a bit tricky the first time. You want to have a very compact, moist soil to plant your seed in, use the soil blocker and the roots themselves will eventually keep the soil together. There are obviously other methods, keep your mind open, even an empty toilet roll can be used for this. For picking your soil, use a light seedling mix. As a newbie I wouldn’t mix your own as I did my second year gardening following someones advice online and it left my garden pretty baren. I accidentally raised the pH, which can cause your plants to get sick and die. If you want to try it anyways, check out some recipes online from reputable gardeners, there are definitely some good ones out there as well.
- Whichever way you are going to plant your seeds, make sure the soil is fully saturated before you do so.
- The packet should also tell you how deep to plant the seed, but when in doubt the bigger the seed, the farther down it can go ranging from around 1/4 to 3 inches. Bury it!
- Place anywhere where you get sun. You do not need a greenhouse or growlights for this. I have had great success growing my seedlings in a windowsil in the basement. If you are only getting sun in one direction make sure you rotate your plants so they don’t reach for the light and fall over as they grow. If you have a greenhouse and growlights make sure the lights are fairly close to your plants, so they don’t reach for the light, stretch out and become leggy. In both cases you need to provide wind resistence, a fan will work fine. This will force the stems to become stronger so they don’t break in the wind and your seedlings will become stronger and healthier overall.
- Once your last estimated frost date has passed, you aren’t ready to just place outside. If you do, your plants will turn white and die. The direct sun exposure will bleach your delicate little plants and kill them. You need to harden them off. This means you bring your plants out in increments over the next week or so. The first day you will bring it out for an hour and leave it in the shade. The next day, bring it out for two and leave it in the shade. Once you have about 5 or so hours, try leaving it over night. It may become a bit wilty but given that it didn’t get too cold at night, it will spring up as it warms up again. Now try to adapt it to the light, bringing out into the sun in the same manner, gradually over days. When your plant is ready to be placed in the ground or permanantly outside, you can tell. Touch the leaves before you place it outside. They are thin, without definition, almost soft. Touch them after they’re ready to be placed outside, they are thick, almost rough and you can feel the bumps and grooves to them. This is the plant adapting to the environment and become tougher to withstand the conditions outdoors.
- Now plant it! By now you’re not growing seeds anymore, you’re growing seedlings.
Good luck gardening,
Julie Ya