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SEED STARTING FOR THE HOME GARDEN
I have discovered a cheap, simple method of starting flower and vegetable seeds for the home garden. It utilizes the principle of capillary action and a moist newspaper mat. To construct such a device, the following items will be required:
- A roller paint tray obtained from the paint department of a box store.
2. A 5-foot length of 1ü inch PVC pipe obtained from the plumbing department of the same store. This needs to be cut into 25 2-inch cylinders and then filled with a good seed starting mix.
3. A 6-inch piece of I-inch PVC pipe to be used as a plant ejector.
4. A half dozen sheets of newspaper.
Lay the newspaper on the sloping part of the paint tray with several inches immersed in the paint holding well. Fill this well with water and watch as the newspaper mat slowly becomes saturated as it draws up water. Plant a few seeds in each mix-filled cylinder and tamp lightly so the bottom of the mix is in contact with the wet newspaper. It will soon start drawing up moisture via capillary action and become damp. Keep adding water to the well as needed.
Using short pieces of an old venation blind and a lead pencil, identify each cylinder with name and date of planting.
In a week or two, the seeds will germinate and green leaves will appear. When about 2 or 3 inches tall and ready to transplant to a larger container or the garden, use the 1â ejection tool. Place this over the green leaves of the sprouted seedling. It will telescope nicely into the 1üâ planted cylinder. Pull up on the planted cylinder and the seedling will be bottom ejected without disturbing the roots. Add fresh planting mix around the new, larger container and place in a bright-lighted window for further development.
Hi emdzir,
That probably depends on several things. There's an old thread here on GardenWeb (see link below) that might be helpful.
Art
Here is a link that might be useful: Frozen Seeds
A chance, depending on how close to opening that true leaf is....you may just have to wait and see. What happened that the cotyledons were damaged, and has that been corrected? The cotyledons serve as food sources until true leaves are formed and the plant is capable of photosynthesis, so your seedling could be stunted by their loss, or not survive if there isn't enough energy to develop the true leaf. If that happens, hopefully you will have more seeds following to take it's place - few of us sow one of anything :)
The modern refrigerator, besides being cold, has a evaporative effect, removing moisture from anything exposed to its air movement. Seeds stored in this environment must be sealed from the refrigerator air. If you are unfortunate enough to use diabetic test strips, their containers make ideal seed storage containers. Al
Isn't it better to pasteurize than sterilize? The reasoning, as I understand it, is that you kill pathogens, while not destroying beneficials. Usually this is done at 140 F in the oven for 30 minutes to an hour, I guess a bit higher than just pasteurization into 160-180 F for killing weed seeds. (I also think that smaller batches could be done in a pressure cooker inside of mason jars or similar, some people complain of the smell of pasteurizing soil, never bothered me). Killing the soil's beneficials is a bad idea since the baddies can come back faster than the good things finding their way back in, whereas if you just pasteurize and maintain the good things, they suddenly have even more medium to grow in faster, without competition from the bad guys.
Hope that explains it and that I am not wrong.
I will be posting my own seed starter question soon (making one's own veganic seed starter w/o peat, vermiculite or perlite),, hope others can help out.
With the starter mix you don't need to have beneficial micro organism. They will get all that when planted in the garden or container. So the point of sanitization is to help the newly germinated seedlings untl they develop their defense system.
Another reason is to avoid trying to fight bugs, fungi etc in an indoor condition. This is probably my most important concern.
BTW: has anybody used camomile tea to fight tiny bugs ? I have tried. It seems to work.
Hi wertach,
Well, usually a little heat is helpful for seed germination but not necessary after germination. After the seeds have germinated, they usually grow better at lower temperatures (about 65 to 70 degrees F.) Heat will cause a plant to grow faster, requiring more light to balance that rapid growth. Unless you feel that you can supply lots of light, youâÂÂll be better off keeping things on the cool side. Keeping the temperature cooler will help to prevent weak and leggy plants.
Hope this is helpful,
Art
Agree with Art.
After germination, that area might be too hot, for the starting container to have contact with the top of the heater. But you can check it with a kitchen thermometer. After germination you will need a temperatures of about 55 -65F. Warmer temperature encourage faster growth.
Hi summervin and welcome to GardenWeb!
Sorry to hear youâÂÂre having problems with the celosia. Actually, itâÂÂs hard to offer any suggestions because there are just so many possibilities and you have given so little information :-) Are these plants something you started inside? Under lights or in a window? Or did you start them outside? Where are the plants now? Have you fertilized at all and with what? Are they getting plenty of sun?
IâÂÂve grown celosia for years, starting them inside under lights in very late winter. They have always been very fast growers. The only mistake I made (first time I grew them) was to move them outside too early. Celosia can not stand cold weather, they love the heat. If put outside too early they take forever to recover (if at all).
If you could explain in more detail, maybe someone will have some ideas that may be helpful. Personally, there just is not enough information here to even give me a clue.
Art
seedlings ended up long and spindly
That particular issue is caused by insufficient light and overly warm ambient air temps, primarily lack of light, and not by the growing medium used.
Seedlings require intense, broad-spectrum light from the instant of germination for a minimum of 12-16 hours out of 24. Low intensity and/or lights too far above the plants causes them to stretch toward it and ultimately fall or die as the stem cells are stretched. Other than over-watering, it is probably the most common problem associated with starting seeds indoors.
Overly warm environmental temps (air, not soil temps warmer than 60-65 degrees) only make the problem worse.
There is a FAQ here and many discussions about the various types and amounts of lights to use including plain old shop lights kept no more than 1" above the plants but the bottom line is that you literally cannot have too much light and if plants get leggy then they aren't getting nearly enough.
keep them in the dark until they sprout
Only a few flower seeds require darkness to germinate. 90% of seeds - flower or vegetable - do not.
As for medium to use, Rapid Rooters or any similar product works fine for an ebb n' flow. I personally prefer rock wool cubes but only because they retain their form better and aren't as fragile.
Dave
SEED STARTING FOR THE HOME GARDEN
I have discovered a cheap, simple method of starting flower and vegetable seeds for the home garden. It utilizes the principle of capillary action and a moist newspaper mat. To construct such a device, the following items will be required:
- A roller paint tray and plastic liner obtained from the paint department of a box store.
2. A 5-foot length of 1ü inch PVC pipe obtained from the plumbing department of the same store. This needs to be cut into 25 2-inch cylinders and then filled with a good seed starting mix.
3. A 6-inch piece of I-inch PVC pipe to be used as a plant ejector.
4. A half dozen sheets of newspaper.
Lay the newspaper on the sloping part of the paint tray with several inches immersed in the paint holding well. Fill this well with water and watch as the newspaper mat slowly becomes saturated as it draws up water. Plant a few seeds in each mix-filled cylinder and tamp lightly so the bottom of the mix is in contact with the wet newspaper. It will soon start drawing up moisture via capillary action and become damp. Keep adding water to the well as needed.
Using short pieces of an old venation blind and a lead pencil, identify each cylinder with name and date of planting.
In a week or two, the seeds will germinate and green leaves will appear. When about 2 or 3 inches tall and ready to transplant to a larger container or the garden, use the 1â ejection tool. Place this over the green leaves of the sprouted seedling. It will telescope nicely into the 1üâ planted cylinder. Pull up on the planted cylinder and the seedling will be bottom ejected without disturbing the roots. Add fresh planting mix around the new, larger container and place in a bright-lighted window for further development.
First, "largest" does not necessarily equal "healthiest". Nothing but a very marginal correlation has ever been established.
Same holds true for size of the seed. Vigor of the seedling is equally dependent on the DNA of the seed and the growing conditions provided. Smaller seeds can have superior DNA definition over larger seeds just as easily as the reverse. It is the conditions provided that will make all the difference.
Dave
Given the choice of seeds, I would choose the larger more uniform in shape to plant. The stored energy in the seed provide the cotyledons or seed leaves as well as the radicle or root. Once germinated and initial root and seed leaves produced, and able to feed the seedling, then the DNA or basic vigor of the species is paramount, in my opinion. Al
Since no one replied to this thread, I'll link a duplicate thread (from the Trees Forum) that got a few responses.
Here is a link that might be useful: duplicate thread in another forum
Wow! I had never heard of these places. You learn something new every day. Thank you!!!
I'm starting a couple Quercus muehlenbergii (chinquapin oaks) this fall. It is interesting that white oak family acorns germinate free-fall before they hit the ground (aka - very fast, smiley face).
Shell should be dried, brittle and brown. Easily opened. Seeds should be dried and hard and brown.
If they are not too green, you can dry them in a window sill. Use an anti-desicant pack if you have one. Drying greener seeds with a hair dryer facilitates drying.
Sand paper them and boil for a few minutes and soak overnight. They have one of the thickest seed shells I have ever seen. :-) I did a test with 4 scraifying techniques and the combination works best for KY Coffee bean seeds.
No need for cold treatment.
Plant and they should be up in ~ 1 week @ 75 degrees F.
Will then grow easily a foot in a month or so. Zone 5 b.
Very mature trees should bloom and set seeds every year, assuming you have more than one plant. They seem to pollinate better that way. My brother has several hundred some > 60 '. They all set seeds most years.
I know this to be true, but is it true even for plants like tomatoes and peppers that languish in cool night temps?
BTW I'm 36 and have been gardening since I was 10. Wasn't as good of a way to pick up girls when I was younger as I thought it would be...haha.
but is it true even for plants like tomatoes and peppers that languish in cool night temps?
Again the important distinction is between AIR temps and SOIL temps. Tomato plants don't languish in cool night temps IF they are growing in warm soil - one reason why using black landscape fabric mulch on the soil for example can allow for much earlier transplanting.
We all try to force top growth as it is the most visible sign of plant development. But we have to remind ourselves now and then that the focus early in a plant's life isn't top growth. It is root development. Bodacious top growth without the root development needed to support it only leads to stressed plants with all sorts of problems and poor production down the line.
So while a plant may appear to be languishing at times - in that there is minimal top growth to be seen - that doesn't mean it isn't thriving at the root level.
Dave