6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed

I start them in plastic six paks by sprinkling seeds on top of soil. When planting out, I break apart the plants and plug them into the ground about 5" apart. I don't bother to thin out any plants. Each plug has up to six seedlings. They fill out nicely.

great responses, thank you! That helps a lot. I went ahead and sowed them more thickly. I'll do the pinching as suggested as well!

I missed this "The effects of that stress will vary with plant types but summer vegetables such as pepper and tomatoes plants will not tolerate it at all."

If my pepper plants are stressed from my system they sure don't look it. The pepper seeds were sown ~ February 15th.

I'm going to try my hand at growing my own tomatoes from seed. A friend gave me seeds for a heirloom Iris tomato. So I am grateful for all of the info on hardening off. Now if I can just do while working full time.

Here's one for you. A couple of years ago we visited my son-in-law's grandmother's home. She had a rosemary bush 8" to 10" trunk diameter They had just cut it back & got a pickup truck load of rosemary but it was still about 5' tall. She said that she started that "tree" some years back with a sprig from a neighbor which she rooted by putting it in a glass of water until she saw roots & then planted it. It was in a raised bed. I so liked it that I bought the largest rosemary plant I could find, made a 3'x3' raised bed just for it. It is growing fine but heaven knows how long it will take it to get any size. I am going to prune off branches at the lowest point to help the trunk reach a greater diameter sooner. That tree was unbelievable!!

I just have to say that I planted 44 rosemary seeds and have 8 seedlings about and inch to an inch and a half tall. I had 14 of them germ, but I think some were a bit small when I put them under the light and they didn't make it. I am still pretty happy with 8. I did the primed rosemary from Swallowtail. They germ. in about a week. I might have to try again next year just to see if it was a fluke or something :).

Some digital thermometers have calibration adjustments. It may rally be off, or the heater my b off.

Thanks folks! I tried placing the probe of the digital heat mat thermometer directly into one of the flats & that fixed my problem (ie, gave me an accurate reading), after I'd cooked several flats of seeds, of course...........

I've never had an issue with putting the probe in a separate plastic cup of wet growing media, in years past....... Hmmmm........

riograndegal - Hazzard's Greenhouse has lots of cleome seed types for sale including a plum color and a lavender. You could buy seeds then trade what you don't need/use (they sell in bulk). I ordered from them last winter and the seeds arrived in a matter of days from when I placed the order.

These are new to me , and I look forward to trying them out in the Post Oak Savannah of Texas this coming Spring. Thank you guys for all the valuable info on these beauties.
LtlWilli~Rick

I think I'm in zone 6a (Natick, MA). The reason I started them all at the same time is because I am in college, so plant my seeds when I come home for spring break in mid March. However if I need to start some earlier or later my dad will do it, I just have to get over my fears that he'll do it wrong lol.

As for fertilizer we just use miracle grow every few weeks on the garden. We did wait a little too long this year to start fertilizing if I remember correctly.

It sounds like with the squashes I started too early and so they were stunted when I transplanted them. We don't want to plant directly in the garden, so I'll be using your advice on transplanting before they get 3 sets of leaves.

My parents go on vacation every year in April, I'm away at school during this time, so my brother was left in charge of watering. He didn't. This year we'll probably ask my uncle to do it instead.

Thank you for the information on different varieties, I've never been picky about what variety I buy, so I'll pay more attention to that.

My dad always worries about the amount of sunlight our garden gets, he's always said it isn't enough. Neither of us actually know how many hours of sun it gets though. But he thinks that's our biggest problem. He is planning on having a tree cut down, but he's been planning on that for a couple of years, so we'll see.

Yeah you have some definite handicaps to work around then. Sounds like you are going to have to find a gardening partner to fill in the gaps.

Rather than trying to get all the things into the garden at the same time and before mid-May, why not focus on just a couple of things - like say tomato plants. Then you can direct seed the squash later in May.

Dave

Couple of things:
Gardenweed -- I agree with others, beautiful hand!
Grease Pencil -- I have heard pencil works best to not fade. I made the mistake of using sharpie permanent marker. It wasn't.

Everyone using plastic stakes/markers; I use wood because it is a renewable resource, is inexpensive, and pencil writes well on it. Yes, eventually they rot; which is good! I hate digging in my garden and finding plastic tags from bygone years! Those using copper (expensive these days), etching, recycling blinds, etc -- kudo's to you! But that is too much work for this lazy gardener! Wood and pencil...simple and cheap; which is probably why that is what my grandfather used decades ago!

Stick with wood!

Soft black pencil on pieces of old plastic window blind slats are the best thing I have ever used. One blind picked out of someone's trash will last for years. Plus everything is recycled and FREE.

I know there has to be a way to do it successfully since i have talked to a few growers who are happy using it.

Apparently the length of the wicking piece and the distance in height between the water source and the plants is the key to controlling the amount of water that actually reaches the plants. I've just never figured It out correctly. Good luck with it.

Dave

After a couple of days of thinking about it, I removed the capillary mats.
It did not make sense to me (after the first wave of resistance and rationalization because I had by then bought the mats and set up the system) to flirt with overwatering, the factor which leads to much seedling death.

No, at that dilution, it's fine. I've bought a lot of chestnuts treated with bleach and got good germination. Mind you, for my own seed, I don't treat, I just keep the medium a little drier.

I agree with jocelyn, there are many different ways to stratify seeds. I have tried using the "paper towel" method and that works as well. As long as the seeds are damp and cold for the necessary length of time without fungal problems you should be fine.

As mentioned, I typically use plain, ordinary damp sand for seed stratification but I've read that other people use things like peat, pine bark, coarse gravel, even cotton facial pads, in place of sand. As long as your stratification medium is just barely damp you should be OK.

I strongly suggest not use any kind of regular garden soil without sterilizing it. You have no idea what kinds of weed seeds and bacteria may be in that soil.

I've not used bleach to sterilize the seeds but as stated above it seems to work very well. I find that peroxide works well on seeds, and I have never had any fungal/mold problems when using it.

Thanks

TYG

Could you please direct me to the seller. I would like to buy them next year. So far my attempts have been futile.

Thanks in advance.

You can buy them through Amazon.com (be sure to review the supplier's ratings though!)

www.seedscollector.com (I have no idea who the heck these people are, so purchase with caution) has them.

Seeds of India (limited, excellent Garden Watchdog rating) is supposed to have them in April.

There are more Murraya koenigii seed suppliers that you can find with Google. There are numerous suppliers if you want the plant instead of the seeds. For some reason, these seeds are mostly only available through non-standard sources without much of reputation to go by. I always like to know who I'm buying from, when possible.

Lucille, if you found other threads particularly useful, could you post links to the ones you found most important? I'd be interested to see just what they said.

In my experience, whether more fibrous roots are better is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all kinda thing. More fibrous roots are probably better in many cases and especially where the plant will be permanently grown in pots, but occasionally there may be disadvantages (probably more technical than I want to go into here). Another things is that you don't have to change pots to get the same results.

Like before, I am not saying that you should only do it one way (or in this case avoid a certain way), but am just trying to present some things to consider. If you are able to post the links, maybe we can get an even better handle on what needs to be considered.

P.S. If you grow your seedling in flats, do remember to pot up in time. Separating out overgrown seedlings whose roots have significantly intermingled can be a little bit of a mess and may even result in extra root loss and set-back.

Brandon, just doing a search for 'fibrous roots' and 'potting up' brings up quite a bit.
I will for sure move them prior to their roots getting entangled, thanks for bringing that up.

I hardly think legit seed companies would offer them for sale if they were illegal and many in the USA and Canada have them in their catalogues

Be discreet. Grow them in your backyard among your vegetables. They are more likely to attract thieves than to interest the police.

Here is a link that might be useful: more poppy pictures and growing notes on my gardening blog

This post was edited by kvbk on Sat, Jan 11, 14 at 0:05