Not too early and not too late strikes the best balance between a good head start and a lot of additional work.
It's a good idea to start your seeds indoors because it's best to get a jump on the germination process before the weather gets too warm.If I had started my broccoli plants in the ground they would not have matured quickly enough and they would be trying to produce in the heat of the summer.
My suggestion for us here in one six, is that we start the coal crops at the third week of March. And what we're going to be doing today is we're going to be starting a couple of of flower seeds and also the solenacious vegetable crops and the by Solenaceous I mean, those plants that belong to the tobacco family or the deadly nightshade family, that is the tomato, the pepper and the eggplant.
The timing for us here in zone six is mid April and if you start them too early, plants could be in danger of maturing in too small a pot and the roots start winding around the pot. And it's not a very thrifty plant. Now, if you start them early, of course, if you report them every couple of weeks, you can you can end up with a nice thrifty plant. But that takes a lot of room to do that. I think the best tactic is to wait to mid-April and start the tomatoes, peppers and eggplant and also the things like flowers, like marigolds started in mid-April, and you'll have a nice size plant, the proper size plant for planting out, after all, danger of frost. All these plants are not frost tolerant.
The process here that we use is we'll be starting seeds in these seed germinating trays with the eight insert and then we will transplant those seedlings into larger pots. A lot like this salvia that we have here for soil many people use compost, which is fine. You don't want it to be too moist. You want a this is a commercial germinating mix. It's fine, fine texture. There's no obstruction for some of the titan seedlings that that emerge or are very delicate. And so we we use this superfine germinating mix it's called but you can use a very fine compost to make sure that you sift it through a grid of, you know, like a screen to get the finest particles to use.
And you don't want it too moist to begin with. I put the soil mixed in loosely to the top, and then I will go through and tamp it lightly to create an even bed for the for the seeds. A lot of the seeds that will be planting today are round. So you want a very even bed or else the seeds in here, they'll all go to the low spot. You want to pay attention to the instructions on all of the seed packets.
There's a number of plants that require light for their seeds to germinate. This includes lettuce and a large number of flowers as well. So when I plant lettuce in this situation, I will plant them right on top of this, this seed bed that I've created. And then I'll put a dusting of vermiculite which allows light penetration through it, and that the vermiculite holds the seed in place during the watering process.
If the planting depth is more than a quarter or a half of an inch, then I will remove some of the soil from here and then recreate a deeper bed. But most of the seed seeds that we're starting today are in are the depth is a quarter to a half an inch, which is close to what I have here on all these planting trays.
You want to put about 30 or 35 seeds in this tray and that's it. Here's the next thing that you really have to pay attention to. This is important. is to make sure that you label everyone correctly.
So that is Barbarella eggplant. And here's the other part that I use on the back. I put today's date 4-11 and because we're going to plant all these, I'll put 4-11 all the way across and then a line underneath all of that, the next day will be the date that we move the little seedlings from the seed germinating tray to larger pots. There will be another date for when we put them outdoors and there will be another date below that for when we start harvest. It helps in the record keeping. You put the tag in that one and then you cover that seeding with more germinating mix.
Now you don't want to drown it with water, you just want to kind of get it moist and bless it. Like, you can imagine the pope kind of, "bless you, my siblings. Bless you. My seedlings." That's about right. Right there.
Some people put this in a plastic bag to keep it moist if you're growing them at home. Most people's houses are more dry than the greenhouse. There are germination domes. There are clear plastic domes that fit right on top of a tray that. In the greenhouse, we don't have a problem with humidity and keeping these moist, so I don't cover them. That also is a problem. If it gets too humid inside that bag, it will result in some problems. So this is ready to set aside. And for those little seeds to wake up and begin the magic of another growing season.
Thanks for watching GardenClips, a perennial bloomer among the gardening shows on RU-vid!
#seedstarting
29 сен 2024
