Tips for Germinating and Sowing Seeds

Use quality seed
 We grow open pollinated heirloom vegetables.  Seeds saved from open pollinated plants grow into the same variety of vegetable as the parent plant so I save seed from the best plants for sturdier plants the following year.  Because I refuse to give my money to corporations that force genetically altered food on all of us, I buy from catalogs that support small, organic and family farms.  This year I've purchased from FEDCO, Seeds of Change, Peaceful Valley, Southern Exposure Seeds and Baker Creek Seeds. Last year I used these same sources for seeds and had excellent results.

 New seed starters might want to start with squash (pumpkins), beans, peas, melons and cucumbers. Other easy to grow vegetables are broccoli, brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, lettuce,and tomatoes. Easy to grow annual flowers include alyssum, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. (Tithonias and Sunflowers are easy to grow but I prefer starting them in the ground.) Perennials include coreopsis, coneflowers, painted daisies, fox glove, Shasta daisies, columbines, and hollyhocks.

When you plant is important
I've found that starting some plants from seed is a lengthy process but very worth it as I can grow varieties that are disease free (unlike the big box store garden varieties) and I can grow unusual varieties.  Chiles are the most important plants for us for our rellenos, enchiladas, stew and sopaipillas. I try to grow as many different varieties as I can afford! My last frost date is about April 15th.  I start peppers about mid January and sometimes sooner.  For more information on when to plant what you might want to visit:
Alabama Garden Calendar = http://www.aces.edu/pubs/docs/A/ANR-0047/ANR-0047.pdf

Organic Gardening Seed Starting chart:
http://www.organicgardening.com/feature/0,7518,s1-2-10-212,00.html?trafficsource=OGNews_2006_02_16

Find clean containers
If you want to reuse last year's containers, you'll want to give them a good rinse with a bit of vinegar in the water to kill pathogens.  Let them dry in the sun. I also use paper cups (anything at least 2 inches high) that have holes punched in them for drainage.  I set the cups in cardboard trays lined with trashbags for waterproofing or in plastic trays. I have also saved those clear, covered plastic trays used for salad or bakery items at the grocery store.  Clean those carefully if you use them!  I have to admit the best results I get are from the flats I bought that come with a clear plastic dome lid. I'm not good at remembering to water and using those is a more forgiving system. If I run out of everything else, I take a cardboard milk carton, staple the mouth shut, cut a square out of one side and use that to start seeds in.  

Growing Medium
    We use finished compost from a pile that is more than a year old to avoid problems with disease. Well aged compost contains microbes that prevent pathogens from being a problem.  I try to severely limit my use of peat and perlite as that practice isn't sustainable but do sometimes use a little if I run out of compost.  If I use peat moss, I combine 5 2 gallon buckets of peat moss + 4 buckets of perlite + 1/2 cup green sand  + 1/2 cup rock phosphate + 1/2 cup kelp + 1/4 cup lime or wood ash + as much compost as I can find.  You really shouldn't use potting soil in a bag.  First some corporations use fillers that contain heavy metals.  Second, soil in these bags can contain fungi that causes the seedlings to die (called dampening off.)  Some stores sell bagged seed starting mix with fertilizers in them.  The fertilizers can burn the roots of the seedlings.  The fertilizers I include in my soil mix (green sand, kelp, rock phosphate) won't burn roots and are slowly taken up by the plant allowing the plant to have a steady source of nutrition.

Sow seeds and LABEL
   If you forget to label and you get a wonderful plant, you might not remember the next year what that plant was.  It happens all the time to me and is frustrating!  This year I am backing up my label system with a notebook. Each flat (or whatever) is numbered with a label maker and the contents are recorded in my notebook.
Read about the seed requirements before sowing seeds as some need light to germinate.  Moisten your planting medium before sowing the seeds or you'll have seeds floating all over the place when you do water!

Seeds need warmth and moisture
   I am neglectful when it comes to watering so I cover the trays with plastic of some sort to keep the seeds moist. To keep my seeds warm, I found a mini-greenhouse on closeout.  I place that greenhouse over my kitchen floor register so the seeds stay warm and the heat comes mostly from the bottom.  We keep our house on the cool side so the heat isn't excessive.  When I didn't have that greenhouse, I used a child's play table over the register and stacked my seed trays and then covered everything in a blanket. Some gardeners use the top of their fridge taking advantage of the warmth from the appliance.  You can also buy seed starting mats that maintain an even heat.  I have many too many flats to use one of those. 

Keep them damp
  I usually leave one cell in my flat empty and pour water into that so that the seeds get their moisture from below.  You can also mist the seeds.  Running water might dislodge the seeds and ruin your efforts.  OH! Important.  I've noticed much greater results when I used filtered water that I let sit overnight.  I think the chlorine wreaks havoc on new seedlings.

The seeds are germinating. Now what?

Light
You will need light at the first signs of sprouting. You can try a sunny window but the plants need a good bit of light so putting them under shoplights is a better idea. The shoplights provide a steady source of light. Keeping the lights just 2 inches above the plants gives the plants a healthy start. You'll need to gradually raise the lights as the seedlings mature but that is easy as shoplights come with chains to suspend them by.  If plants grow long and leggy trying to get enough light, they weaken and don't do well in the garden and don't bear well either.  I put my lights on a timer set for 16 hours a day.

I've had to be creative as to where I set up the lights. My husband has built a planting shelf to start my seeds. It is fashioned after one I saw in Mother Earth News <click here for the plans online>.  Shops lights hang from each shelf and sit a few inches away from the seeds. We also have a table from a garage sale set up in the garage.  Suspended from the rafters in the garage are shoplights. I also have a set of metal shelves scrounged from my husband's workshop that were bent.  I straightened them and used dowels to reinforce them and suspended a shoplight from the bottom of each shelf.  My husband made sides for the shelves out of cardboard covered with mylar (to deflect light and provide more light for the plants.)  The sides keep our cats out of the shelves too.  Before I had any of these set ups, I grew seedlings on top of a piano and in my closet!  You'll find a spot; just let yourself get a little creative!

Keep plants on the cool side
  The seedlings do not need to be kept as warm as the seeds did.  On the cool side is best.  Growing ours in the garage, the temperatures stay at about 55*F.

Give plants nutrients
  I give mine a mist of compost tea to keep them healthy and happy. A weak solution of fish emulsion and kelp is something else I use sometimes.

Repot big plants
  You don't want your plants to be crowded.  If they are looking too big for their spots, you can repot them in paper cups or larger plant pots.  Rootbound, crowded seedlings will not do well in the garden.

Rodale says to Pet them
 "Lightly ruffling seedlings once or twice a day with your hand or a piece of cardboard helps them to grow stocky and strong. Or, set up a small fan to gently, continuously blow on your seedlings. "

Harden off your plants
About a week before the plants are to go in your garden you'll need to start acclimating (hardening off). I move mine to my north facing front porch and leave them unless we expect a freeze. I gradually expose them to more sun.  Putting a plant in the ground straight from your protected plant shelf will simply not work. You'll loose a number of seedlings if you do.

Sowing Seeds Outdoors
   Sometimes our part of the country gets heavy downpours.  To avoid losing seeds that are sown outdoors, I top the ground with row covers (really I use old sheer drapes fromt he thrift store as row covers cost too much and degrade too fast) or a layer of newspaper or burlap. If I keep the cover in place for a few days, usually the seeds are germinated. I keep checking daily after the first three days until I see plants.  The plants seem to get a leg up on germination this way and I can space seeds just where I want them and expect a high germination rate.  The seeds won't germinate if you don't keep them moist so plan to devote part of each day to watering until the seeds germinate.

   IN ADDITION, I create either a hill or a row of compost within the garden bed that I sow the seeds into.  Adding extra compost in just the spot where the seed will grow gives the plants a boost later.  I make an indentation in the ground and fill it with compost and them sow my seed<s>. Finished compost deters plant diseases and even deters plant pests!

    I scatter eggshells around certain plants like spinach to deter slugs and snails. 


Planting in a Hugelkultur Bed
New Hugelkultur beds are not usually ready for seeds or small plants when planting season comes around. Some people plant potatoes in them the first year but I didn't have success with that. Neither did I want to waste the time and space waiting for the beds to be ready so I came up with an idea that works. The kids and I sit down in the evenings and make paper mache` pots using plain newspaper and flour paste. We use 2 gallon (or larger) plastic pots as our forms. Once the pots dry and the timing is right, we start squash or melons in the pots. We plant the pots right into the bed. As the pots degrade the beds are also degrading and once the pot completely degrades the roots will find the soil in the hugelkulture bed to use. Works like a charm! As you can see, this would also work for new, sheet-composted beds too. If you would like to see how to create a hugelkultur bed follow this link: http://home.att.net/~ekyorigins/Hugelkulture.html

Mother Earth News I appreciate it when a company has integrity and I think making back issues of Mother Earth News available online is super! You will find many answers to questions at their website. I very much look forward to their magazine.

NewFarm.Org is another favorite haunts of mine. Terrific information. I do wish more farms would register with them so that when I travel I can make it a point to buy from farms!

LINKS