6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Ok great :)
Had 2 other questions pop into my mind. Just to get to the smaller details.
1. Say we have 15 seeds in a cell. 2 of 15 pop on the first day. Are we leaving the bag sealed, for say a week? To see who else comes up. Or do we open at the start and the rest will follow?
2. Concerning the fertilizer. What type of delivery system do you recommend? Spray bottle - or drip in to not get it on the seedlings. Not sure if the seedlings can handle foliage type feedings.
And thanks a lot for the input. I sowed 20 Porodia Haselbergii about a hour ago on the GM. I got about 1000 seeds from mine this year, so using them for experiments to weed out some potential future problems.
Thanks again
Doug
Ugh I wish you could edit previous posts.
"But you have to be comfortable with doing lots of transplanting to individual cells within a short time as they can't all remain in the 1 cell for any length of time. How soon will vary from variety to variety."
The criteria for when to transplant, will be about the point that they come near to touching each other and/or overcrowding correct?
Doug
Sorry but I guess I am not being clear. The media used to start seeds, to germinate them and grow them to transplant size, is very different from the media used to grow plants. One does not use growing media to start seeds.
So are you talking about starting seeds and seedlings which is the focus of this forum or are you talking about growing plants? There are no approved recipes for starting seeds. It is an important difference.
Dave
Thank you for your post, morz8. I appreciate your explanation of the stratification process. Most of the websites I visited were extremely vague, and did not explain that the seeds had to be moist for the conditioning to be of any use.
Regardless, perhaps I need to be more patient, or perhaps I should try to find a live plant for this year and go from there.
For those seeds that do need the moist cold period, you can either sow your pots or flats, cover or wrap in saran or slip into a plastic bag, put them into your refrigerator (dated of course). If space is an issue, you can put the seeds with as little as a teaspoon or two of moist sterile sand or moist sterile vermiculite into a tiny zip lock (again, dated) and put that into your refrigerator. When the recommended time is up with the small zip lock bag, you can then sow the entire contents of the bag, vermiculite and all and not have to extract the seeds - helpful with the smaller types seed.
There are a handful of plants where seed is best sown before being stored any number of months, I've acquired fresh seed from purchasing a plant a few times now. Monkshood, ladies mantel are two that come to mind :)
What has happened is the stress of taking them in and out - the radical changes in environment. Once hardening off begins, they need to stay in that environment. Otherwise they aren't being hardened off. That means you shouldn't start the process unless the weather forecast allows it to continue until they can go into the garden.
Less experienced gardeners who try to rush planting out will hotly debate this - see recent discussions - but the validity of it is well established.
In your case nights of 40-50's are no problem for them outside. The severe storm? Perhaps but rather than bring them end you just move them to a more sheltered environment for the duration of the storm. Back inside and under lights is too radical a change.
Clearly there are exceptions, depending on the crop. A sudden snow fall or hard freeze for example. In which case bring them in but try to duplicate the outside environment as much as possible - cool basement with no lights, for example rather than the living room with lights.
What many fail to understand about the process of hardening off is that full bright sun tolerance is not the primary goal. Adjusting them to air temp and avoiding high wind exposure is. Dappled sun, what many call part shade, as long as they are protected from harsh winds and air temps below 40's is great hardening off conditions for most vegetable plants.
If you will move most of your tomato plants to such an environment they will recover assuming they are not rootbound in their containers. You may lose some of the worst leaves but the new growth will be fine.
Hope this helps.
Dave
To be chilled for pre treatment to germination, the primrose should be at 35-40F, about like your household refrigerator. P polyantha doesn't usually need it but chilling shouldn't hurt the seed either, not even if you've sown them some time back (just don't plunge them into your freezer for an abrupt drop to 0). At what temperature have you been holding the pots - polyantha is said to germinate best at 60-65 and no warmer than 65 - warmer could delay germination. Surface sown or barely covered.
If you will read through this article by plantsman Tony Avent, you'll see that he has taken ungerminated baptisia from the sowing medium and used the boiling water treatment successfully:
Here is a link that might be useful: Revenge of Redneck Lupins - Avent
Thanks. I figured I was being extremely cautious wi watering . I watered more judiciously and all my seedlings have grown well. I do belong to the almost tropical climactic zone.
Now, I'm faced with what I read as thinning out and transplanting. How do I thin out properly and how do decide which ones to thin out? I feel very sad at the thought since all my seeds have sprouted healthy. Also, when do I transplant? What does first true leaves mean?
I'm so happy with my output I wanna try chamomile and lavender.
Thank you, Dave! I feel so dumb. I thought I had looked at the FAQ and didn't really find much info. Reason why? I clicked the WRONG link and was actually looking at something not related to the FAQ.
I read through all the links. Very helpful, and thorough. One question: Can I use straight sphagnum peat as my growing medium? I also have some perlite if it would be better to mix the two. I will be using recycled flats, and prefer to keep the seedlings growing in this medium until I transplant outdoors in the garden. What do you think? I'm so excited to give this a try! I just have to rig up a shop light in the basement and I'll be set.
Thanks for the help!
Sandy
One question: Can I use straight sphagnum peat as my growing medium? I also have some perlite if it would be better to mix the two.
Straight peat isn't recommended as it is too acidic, difficult to get wet and then retains too much moisture once it is - seeds rot. If you want to go that route - and I don't recommend it - then mix it with the perlite 2 parts peat to 1 part perlite and buy some ag lime to fix the pH problem. Add 1 T of the powdered lime to each 6 quarts of the peat/perlite mix.
It is much easier and you'll have much greater success if you just buy a bag of soil-less seed starting mix.
Dave
What vegetables and herbs are you growing? Some of the hardier ones may be perfectly happy on your porch if it is glazed, ie light, until you start to harden them off and they go out in the garden. In fact some varieties may be ready to start hardening off now. It all depends on what you are growing.
You do understand that you don't have to pinch them at all, right? It all depends on the appearance you want - tall stalks or low bushy clusters.
But yes IF you want lower bushier plants then you would pinch all the varieties. As to timing pinch and then give them a week before transplanting. Make sure they are well hardened off first.
And if you are going to pinch anyway then root the cuttings for even more plants. They root easily.
Dave
You can transplant those tomatoes if you want but *definitely* remove the netting. I'd even say go back and take the netting off the peppers. There was a thread a while ago by someone who planted out his peppers with that netting stuff on and it stunted the growth of his pepper plant because the roots were never able to grow outside that netting.
It's okay! I'm actually wishing I had more time so I can try more seeds myself; I'm still learning when is enough water between two brands of seed-starting foam-type kits!
The link below is something I use as a guide to how long things will take things to germinate. If it's too late, see if the seeds will last until next year.
For propagation, look for the best places to get heating pads, soil and/or kits, and lights. These things will be able to be reused, so if you start slow and shop around, you won't put too much strain on your budget, and you can maybe take advantage of sales over the winter months.
Creativity can be a boon too- anything can hold soil, after all, and I've seen people use things like plastic milk jugs or cup halves.
I can attest to cosmos being fast growers! If the weather is nice and sunny, you can take your flats out during the day too to get a nice boost of sunlight once they're in the seedling stage.
Here is a link that might be useful: Germination info
I have limited indoor space for seed starting, so I often don't start my perennial flower seeds until I begin hardening off my pepper and tomatoes. It may not be ideal, but our summers are lasting a little longer, and our falls are more mild, so by the time I get them planted out in late June, early July, they seem to do fine. I really couldn't do it if I had to try and start them all at once. So, you might say that I am chronically/intentionally late with most of my flower seeds.
Warm cold cool (40s, 50s, not 65F+ for the final cycle) is whats always been recommended for astrantia - truthfully, I always had a problem with purchased seed. I don't have a good place to achieve 50 for germination, basement or otherwise, unless sowing outdoors.
This is among the few plants where to have the seed I could sow successfully, I bought a plant...same season access to fresh seed. They are easy when sown fresh, pots left outdoors, germination takes place late winter/earliest spring here. The darker flowering varieties will produce seedlings with a range from light to dark flowers, often producing a flower or two their first season so you can pick which seedlings to keep depending on your preference.
That original plant, that became a clump, self sowed to the point of almost being a pest :) Seedlings to weed, to move to better and other places, even seedlings in the lawn :) But still at least a runner-up for the longest blooming plant that I grow.
How to save zinna seeds.
Here is a link that might be useful: How to save zinna seeds
The pepper plants around here usually come from big brands even nurseries around the area aren't real nurseries. So there's nothing special about the pepper plants, just run out of the mill bell peppers. If I wanted those I'd just go to the supermarket. I'll maybe use a seed or two to try and save the rest for nxt year
I know there are a lot of guidelines and rules out there but rules are meant to be broken.
Last year I started pepper plants indoors but when it came to planting in Mid May I noticed I had a few extra containers in the shed. So in I popped some pepper seed. I was able to grow black peppers as well as Jalapeno peppers before the season was out. Yes the ones I started indoors produced much better. The ones directly planted took a long time to grow and only started to produce much later in the season but never the less they had peppers.
If you have the extra space then give it a try. If you're limited for space then I wouldn't suggest this route becasue you'll produce more with transplants.