6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
You say you are GOING to buy a fluorescent light? I'm assuming you didn't have one before. That and that alone will give you leggy spindly weak seedlings.
Between the heat mat and the lights you will see a world of difference. Good luck and happy growing!
IMO, you probably don't need additional heat to your coldframes at this time of year unless it gets very cold and cloudy for a few days. Lettuce can handle temps down to about 23 F and spinach even lower. Young seedlings though you probably want to keep above 32F.
Oh. BTW, Miracle Gro expand'nGRO reads as if it were a competitor of Wonder Soil - Home Wonder Soil which, unfortunately, as best I can tell does not have any free sample offers yet.
Thanks everyone! That is good news (no stratifying).
Thanks for the picture gardenweed. They look cute! I'll try planting some tomorrow.
Morz8 - thanks for the link to Clothiers. Is there another database that is reliable besides Clothiers? I'm a little bit unsure from your post if you are saying that Clothiers is reliable or if there was an additional link or name that you also meant to post. The Clothiers link may save me from a lot of posting---I got a bunch of different seeds in an exchange that I'm not sure what I need to do with.
Thank you!
I'm not sure any are quite as complete as Clothiers, and the articles below the database categories are helpful too.
http://theseedsite.co.uk/ (the format changed a couple of years ago and I can't navigate this site as quickly now :) but information is sound)
For propagation of all types included growing from seed, well illustrated, well written - you might look for a copy of Making More Plants by Ken Druse. His suggestions are often for freshly harvested seeds as opposed to purchased dried seeds like you might buy commercially (and will sometimes have developed a deeper dormancy in the drying).
Between Making More Plants, and the Clothiers site there is rarely a seed I can't germinate. Occasionally I will have to go to propagation notes from Explorers Garden by Hinkley - the books by Druse and Hinkley are out and on my desk at all times though so you can always ask if struggling to find particular plant/seed :)
Here is a link that might be useful: Out of print T&M database, also reliable
Yes but I have planted a lot orange trees from the store here in South Florida. They are very weak, get killed by the cold often, have poorly developed root systems etc. Unless you have them in the backyard watering and fertilizing all the time they usually don't survive and when they do are often small and in poor health.
By contrast those grown from seed generally grow into a large shade tree, very disease resistant, drought resistant, cold resistant etc. even as a baby.
Down side is fruit quality is almost always below that of a store variety and some trees seem to never get fruit (they might be 8 years old without fruiting). It's pretty unpredictable.
If you grow one from seed it makes an excellent shade tree unlike the scrawny fruit bearing varieities. Bad part is some of them get so tall difficult to climb up and get the fruit even if they do bear.
The info on every site I go to is always incomplete.
The harvesting of the seeds is seldom ever mentioned.
Do I harvest the seeds in the fall and then stratify them?
Can I harvest them the next spring and assume they're already stratified?
Must I stratify first and then scarify the next spring or can I scarify them and then put them in the fridge to stratify?
When I separated the seeds from the pulp I noted that about half of the seeds sank and half floated. Are they all good seeds or is one group or the other useless?
I am trying an experiment to find the answers to these questions, but with a 3-9 month germination time it is going to be a real problem as I'm doing it on a table in my living room window.
If anyone already has the answers to these questions I would appreciate your letting me know.
Thanks
These are planted transplants or just seedlings? Very different things when it comes to fertilizers. Since both are normally direct seeded in the garden, not grown from seed and then transplanted, it is an important bit of info. Neither tolerates transplanting, especially radishes.
So if you are talking about seedlings - no.
If you are talking about established plants in the garden - sure a 1 time only side dress application of it is fine for the radishes worked well into the soil but not for the beans.
Beans, like all legumes, don't tolerate or need high nitrogen fertilizers. Over use of fertilizers on legumes results in big leafy plants but few if any beans.
Dave
mustgarden, if you have the fungus gnats now, I doubt if you will be able to let your seedlings dry out enough, for long enough, to get rid of the larvae without damaging the plants - better is to not keep your medium too wet to begin with.
I'd go with the BTi - Gnatrol, Knockout gnats, Bonide mosquito beater, or if you cannot find any of those locally, pick up some mosquito dunks and make your own solution - float a dunk or piece of dunk (no need to be precise) in a container of water overnight, then use that water to water your seedlings. It's not a 24 hour cure, it can take up to three weeks of consecutive use each time you water before you have broken the breeding cycle and are seeing no more gnats. Don't worry about the adults, they live just briefly, you want to stop their larvae, larvae that will feed on fine plant roots like the types seedlings are developing.
Is it to late to start seeds in Zone 9?
That all depends on the type of plant and when your recommended plant out date is. Since I doubt you have to worry about a late frost the biggest concern for Florida gardeners seems to be beating the heat. That's why they plant so much earlier than many of us can.
You can confirm this over on the Florida Gardening forum but I think that yes it is too late for growing tomatoes. Most of the Florida growers I know have already planted out for the spring season meaning they started their seed in December. But you have a second season in the fall you can use.
Lettuce? Maybe but transplants will put you 6-8 weeks ahead then use seed for your fall season. And onions from seed? Way too late. Even here onions are seeded in December and the plants are already planted in the garden. Radishes would work for you now but they are direct seeded not transplants. You can probably do cukes and beans too now. But again beans are direct seeded not grown as transplants.
Peppers? It is awfully late as it takes them 10-12 weeks to be ready to transplant.
Your garden season is much earlier than most of the rest of the country so using transplants is your best option this late.
Check the Florida forum to learn what you best plant out dates are.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Florida Gardening
Thanks Dave for the response. I think I'm gonna get a few started veggies, not to many though. I'm interested to see if gardening is for me. At least if I start my gardening journey with started plants I know they'll be alive when they go in the ground. Now whether or not I can keep them alive remains to be seen. If I do well with my starts then I'll make sure to have a better plan for fall and order my seeds early.
Thanks again for your help :)
Sown fresh, most but not all will germinate without any pretreatment (other than scrubbing off the pulp from the seed). Others are slower, requiring long periods of moist chill, even more than one season.
Gardens North, Canada has a nice selection, Chilterns UK carries 7 types arisaema seed. You could feel confident ordering from either, Gardens North will charge for a phytosanitary certificate, Chilterns does not.
Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens North
I use Miracle Grow potting mix and always have great results. As of right now, I have coleus, lupines, black pansies, and blue poppies all growing in it under my lights, with very good germination rates. I've used potting soil of various brands, even Miracle Grow Garden Soil, which the instructions clearly state not to use in containers. It seems to me that unless you have a really finicky plant, they are happy with almost anything. Many plants reseed without our help, and sometimes in odd places. Nature has given the seeds what they need to do their thing. The best we can do is try to imitate it.
If you're still not sure, I would recommend trying first with seeds that are easy to replace. (this is what I did when I decided to take the leap into winter sowing.) That way, it won't be absolutely heartbreaking if something goes wrong. Good luck!
I would prefer to not use soil-less mixtures.
Why when for best results that is the only thing recommended for seed starting. No ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Potting soils compact too much in small containers. It won't drain well so seeds rot and if they do germinate the roots can't penetrate the wet compacted soil. Comparative studies repeatedly show markedly reduced germination and growth rates.
But it is your choice and all depends on what amount of success you want to have.
As to which is best? It is a frequent question here that the search will pull up for you and the two most frequently recommended are ProMix BX and Metro Mix 360. But even plain old cheap Jiffy mix beats potting soil hands down.
Dave
I have a couple of cuttings in a small dome-like plastic container which I planted a couple of days ago. I hope they take because the plant I now have is full of red berries. I squeezed one and saw two tiny seeds the size of a carrot seed. That was the reason for my post.
I appreciate your feedback.
Better done from mid summer cuttings, I used a container filled with a mix of 50/50 peat and perlite. Cover the container with a plastic bag poke a small hole in the bag. Keep the container in the shade. Sanding the seed is the same as cutting seed. Fall planting the seed should work also with germation in the spring.
I am not an expert, but I did grow about 24 trays of plant from seed last year with mostly great results. I tried Lobelia, Echinacea, Galardia and Petunias from your list.
The Lobelia can certainly be in a shallower pot, their roots are not deep.
Echinachea will probably not bloom the first year, but should come back gangbusters the second, so a smaller pot, even if it stunts them a little should be fine.
Petunias have pretty extensive roots, so I would pot those up in the larger ones. I had mine in 9oz plastic cups last year (twice as tall as wide) and they did well. (as the petunias send out trailers, you can snip them and root in pearlite. I tripled my number of plants last year)
Galardia (I grew dazzler mix) also did well in the 9 oz cups. They bloomed profusely by mid July.
There arent many things that will do well in 2 1/2 inch pots for as long as you will need to keep them. Do check out the plastic cups at a dollar store, or Wallyworld. You can get a lot more height for the roots with out getting a lot wider (which is what takes up the light space).
Thanks for that info. I did mis-speak. Planting out usually isn't 100% safe until mid May which is more like 10 weeks instead of 6. (wishful thinking I guess). I am determined to get a bloom on the echinaceas; but I realize that determination is probably futile. :) I'm trying to use square pots so I'm ordering decent ones so that I can use them again. A little more expensive than plastic cups from the dollar store; but then I get a bit more soil for roots to expand into. Since it is such a small operation; the cost isn't too great.
2 heaters and a fan sounds a bit overboard to me. Shouldn't need a fan at all. I use some heat in my coldframes but only during very cold nights.
What is it that you are trying to germinate?
I only have one heater in my cold frame and it is a 150 watt element with no fan. The reason I installed a small fan in the cold frame was to distribute the heat and get even temps throughout the cold frame. I st?arted the lettuce and spinach in the house and kept the temps 70f. Therefore, since they were only two weeks old or so, I figured I needed to keep them around 60-70f. What do you think