6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
After gardening for 55 years, about 2 years ago, I burned out on starting plants from seeds. Occasionally, I start something from seeds, if it's something I can't buy, but if I can buy the plant, I do that instead.
The constant attention needed by the seeds/seedlings, the long wait for a mature plant, and the high rate of failure, just doesn't interest me anymore.
Thanks all. So I will use small pots (got a bunch of plastic 1" pots from home depot leftovers a while back) for seed germination. When they develop their true leaves, I will transplant them into 4" pots with potting soil.
Tomatoes, lettuce, and peppers are what I'm doing like this that I've read do well from transplanting.
Just sharing a tip. I starts lots of things from seeds, and have been doing it for years and years. Last year I had my best pepper transplants EVER! This is what I did: 6-7 evenly spaced pepper seeds planted into a 4" pot. When plants were about 2-3" tall they were each transplanted into a 4-4.5" pot. Voila!! No losses, no issues. This sowing/transplanting scheme happened because I did not need to sow many seeds of each pepper variety, and I just did not have the time to transplant earlier and transplant multiple times into ever larger pots. This saved me time and energy, and the plants thrived:)
DBA,
You are correct, with your better lighting you could start earlier than the recommended times and set out much more advanced plants. In past years I have set out tomato, pepper, and eggplant plants that were in bloom and with small fruits set on them, using overdriven fluorescent shoplights as my light source for no more than 1000 foot candles on the leaves. That is less than 20% of full sunlight outside. (Full sun can range from 5000 foot candles to 8000 foot candles). Your lights are probably much better than mine.
If you do plan to set out much larger and more advanced plants, you will need to re-pot them to larger pots as your plants outgrow the pots they are in. I start my plants in 3.25-inch square pots, re-pot to 5-inch square pots, and re-pot again to 8-inch square pots.
If you are growing your plants in a soilless growing medium (I use Premier ProMix BX), you will also need to water your plants with a dilute but complete nutrient mix. The ProMix that I use does contain enough calcium to get the plants beyond the seedling stage, but by the time they start to bud out, the calcium is depleted and the plants start to suffer calcium deficiency symptoms. To prevent that, I add a little calcium nitrate along with the other soluble nutrients. Hydroponic growers always supply calcium nitrate in their nutrient solutions, and you will probably purchase yours from a hydroponics supplier. Calcium nitrate is an inexpensive soluble nutrient.
Actually, if you think about it, growing plants indoors in a sterile growing medium is, in effect, a form of hydroponic gardening. You are just using a different root support medium instead of soil. Hydroponics is defined as "a technology for growing plants in nutrient solutions (water containing fertilizers) with or without the use of an artificial medium (sand, gravel, vermiculite, rockwool, perlite, peat moss, coir, or sawdust) to provide mechanical support."
You might want to use soluble nutrients that do not contain urea as a nitrogen source. Most plants can absorb urea through their leaves as a foliar feed, but apparently not through their roots. Their roots can take in nitrate ions or ammonium cations. There are several sources of urea-free soluble plant nutrients. I use Better-Gro Orchid Plus and Better-Gro Bloom Booster. I usually purchase my Better-Gro nutrients at a local Lowe's Home Store to avoid paying shipping. There are other good urea-free nutrient formulas in the marketplace. But I am in a Lowe's store from time to time anyway, so it is handy for me to pick them up there.
ZM
(not associated with any product or vendor mentioned or linked)
In addition to all the great info shared here, it's been our experience that when it comes to tomatoes, the best seed starting date is 6-8 weeks before you set them out in the garden. Plan to put them in the garden 10-14 days after the last frost date (tomatoes don't like to be cold.) As an example, if your last frost date is April 15, then start tomatoes around March 1. Set them in the garden in late April or early May.
Here is a link that might be useful: When to start tomato seeds
Commercially lettuce gets the highest price when it is first on the local market. Lettuce farmers along the California coast use chicken manure for the first planting to get the soil temperature up. Big piles of manure are stacked next to the fields over the winter covered with a layer of gypsum to keep the flies and odor down before spreading on the soil and scratching in. Al
"You're kidding me, right?"
yep, thats about how it goes. lol. i have said that about 1000 times...hahaha
the next phrase youll use, usually right after saying that, is "well, off to the composter you go!"
lettuce doesnt mind cold much. it should be ok outside. mine went through 2 small freezes and i dont know how many frosts.
Lights are pricey. I'm partial to Hydrofarm 4ft 8 bulb T5 HO fitures with 6400k bulbs but they are about $200 on ebay (new). They only cover about 4-5 flats but do run a lot cooler then most other type lights so better if kids are around them. If you have good natural lights you can get away with fewer bulb units (a lot less) or look for used units but ask how old the bulbs are. The more light the better the plants. good luck ...
Our club has a greenhouse with natural light where we will plant tomatoes in sixpack cells the 7th of March. The cells are on heat mats at 70 degrees. Three weeks later on March 28 they will be transplanted into 5 inch pots, still in the greenhouse, but off the heat mats. Three and a half weeks later they will be sold. We sell 1500 to 1800 per year, with around 50 varieties. I hope our experience may be some help to you. Each cell is sown with two seeds, the excess is snipped off at soil level. We seldom have any vacant cells. As a non profit we get old seeds donated, which work very well. Al
Hi Barb,
You can get Coral Nymph Salvia seeds from "Swallowtail Gardens Seeds", a very reliable company I've ordered from with complete satisfaction. See link below.
Art
Here is a link that might be useful: Coral Nymph Salvia
Hello Barb, I have plenty of Coral Nymph, as well as other Salvia, for SASBE on my exchange page. I grew a large patch of Yvonnes Salvia, Coral nymph, and Lady in Red from seed last year and they did unusually well. Very pretty! I collected tons of seed. You are welcome to peruse the list and see if there's anything else you want.
Any potting mix will dry out quickly when under warm lamps and in a constant breeze. Never let it dry out completely. A home made mix doesn't have a wetting agent in it so it will be more difficult to get it wet again once it dries out completely. Bottom water and give it time to absorb. Adding a water retention product would help.
Laurie,
Damping Off is a soil borne disease and, to the best of my knowledge, only occurs at the soil level. My guess would be that the blossoms on your squash plant are simply falling off because they aren't getting pollinated.
Squash have male and female blossoms on the same plant. The blossoms are open only during the morning hours of one day. It's during this time that pollen is transferred by bees (which of course you don't have). If no pollination takes place, the blossom will fall off within a few days.
Hope this is helpful,
Art
I don't think I need the heat mat at all. I turned it off for the day and measured the temp tonight and it was down to only 94 degrees. I put a fan on low near it and got it to 85. Now I've turned the fan to high. We'll see.
I wish I wouldn't have wasted money on a heat mat!!
I have four of the APS24 on their second season. Don't use the self water feature from the start. Wait until the seedlings have a little size on them before you fill up the bottoms. I got them as the addon from when I bought their three tier seedling cart. I started wave petunias and marigolds in them last year. This year they have petunias and verbena in them. Using the self watering while seed starting drowns the seeds and tiny plants.
Another route you may try, Air Layering. Although this is a little more of an intense method to propagate, it should produce really good results on this plant. I actually currently have some casterbean seeds I've collected from some plants were I work and am going to see if I can get them to germinate myself.
Hope things work out for you, best of luck.
I work in a greenhouse setting and start many many seeds with a similar method. I use a moistened medium, normally a metromix soil, one withouth perlite but a higher percentage of vermiculite and/or bark as it takes a little longer to dry out. I generally use 1020 flats w/o holes and 50 cell plug flats to insert. I also have another flat that is similar to a basket, woven plastic though I don't recall what they are called, this I place the plug tray inside of and both into the flat. After watering thouroughly I can remove the plugs from the excess water if need be and simply set on the table beside them, we have tables made out of expanded metal so it allows for good ventilation. I find that pouring off excess water after letting the soil soak you lose an awful lot of the the soluable nutrients form the soil and rather than having to replace them through fertilizers, just re-use this water. Even use it to water other plants.
The amount of water to use is very dependent on the size of the pots/cells. 50 plug flats, I tend to put in about 1" of water for maybe 15 minutes, really dry 1 gallon pots I usually set in a couple inches of water and let them set for a number of hours so even the top levels of soils become saturated.
None that I know of. I don't find square at garden centers often either (although I can sometimes at better nurseries that carry supplies). I will order in bulk every few years....much more efficient use of space both indoors and out.
I prefer square slightly taller than wide, my own are 3x4 and 4x5 - my most used size for 'growing on' perennials and shrubs. Last I purchased are ribbed to encourage downward root growth, fewer roots encircling the inside of the pot.
I prefer square also. Space-wise it seems more efficient especially for small plants. The only advantages I've noticed with round pots is that once the young plants get a bit bigger it gives them a bit more room also some plants tend to grow wide and when moving them around some of their leaves can get crushed by the neighboring pot.