Simplifying Seed Starting
Starting seeds may sound intimidating, but it doesn’t need to be, and can often times be accomplished with nothing more than what you already have at home. With proper soil, temperature, and the right amount of light, you can grow perfectly health seedlings to be hardened off and transplanted out in your garden at the start of the season. For a list of resources mentioned in this post - scroll to the very bottom!
Containers
One of the first things you’ll need is a container; this can literally be anything that has drainage holes and can hold soil. In the past, I’ve used solo cups that I’ve cut down and poked holes in the bottom of, milk jug containers, old restaurant to-go containers with clear lids, you name it. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t have to go out and buy seed starting trays or soil blockers. Not to say those things don’t work, but if you don’t want to spend the money, you don’t have to. You’ll just want to be sure your containers have been well cleaned and are able to absorb moisture from the base. Bottom-watering tends to be the best method for seed starting, so as long as you can poke holes in the base of your container, you should be good!
Other methods I’ve seen over the years but haven’t tried myself yet:
Cardboard egg cartons
Soil blocks
Seed snails (this one is intriguing, I may need to try it in coming years)
If you’re bottom-watering, you’ll need something to set all of your containers on. I’ve used anything from a seed tray, to a cookie sheet, to a casserole dish, to a piece of tin foil with the edges rolled up. As long as it can hold water and fit your containers, you should be successful.
Similarly - it will help if you have a humidity dome at the beginning stages of germination. I’ve had several instances where I haven’t put a dome over my seedlings and they painfully failed to germinate vs. the ones underneath a humidity dome. You can use anything from upside down tupperware storage containers, to cling wrap, to ziploc baggies, to take-out lids. As long as your seed starting container fits inside, the material let’s light through (is clear), and can contain moisture, it can act as a humidity dome.
Soil
The first two blog posts I ever wrote were about soil quality, so this one is a big one. While you can start seeds in seed starting soil from your local gardening store, using custom mixes and additives has proven to produce better quality seedlings, at least in my own experience.
A few years ago, I came across a seed starting recipe from a gardener on Instagram that I’ve been using up until this year. It was simple - 1/3 part coco coir, 1/3 part worm castings, 1/3 part perlite. Sometimes I would also throw in some peat moss if I had it laying around. For years, that was good enough for me, and I do still use it in a pinch, but after testing out Floret’s seed starting soil this year, I’m not sure I’ll ever go back to another. As a full time engineer, the first thing I did when Floret released that recipe was throw it in a spreadsheet and calculate it down to what I actually need on a smaller scale. There are two different recipe’s Floret released, the first using Promix as the base, the other using individual ingredients to make up a Promix-like mixture as the base. Since I didn’t have Promix, I used the individual ingredients listed below.
2 Gallon Recipe:
10 Cups Peat Moss
10 Cups Coco Coir
6 Cups Perlite
6 Cups Vermiculite
4.8 Cups Compost (I didn’t have any, so used worm castings)
1/3 Cup Bone Meal (~5 Tbsp)
1/6 Cup Kelp Meal (~ 3 Tbsp)
1/8 Cup Blood Meal (2 Tbsp)
Lighting
This is one thing I majorly underestimated in my first few years of starting seeds indoors. Some people are able to start seeds in their windowsills with natural sunlight, but with the way our house is oriented, there really isn’t anywhere that gets constant sunlight throughout the day so I’ve always used artificial lighting. When I first started, I purchased a few of the rod-like LED “grow” lights from Amazon thinking that would be good. Reviews seemed legit, but every single one of my seedlings was leggy and weak.
This past year, I went ahead and invested in some LED ‘shop’ lights that put out some serious lumens, and WOW did it make a difference. I’ve seen plenty of content on lighting and how important it is, but to truly see that difference in action was wild. The ones I purchased were from Lowes, cost about $17 each, are able to plug in to a standard outlet, and can plug 6 of them together on one outlet.
Certainly not necessary, but to make life way easier, I also used a few controlled receptacle plugs that automatically turn all of the lights on in the morning and off at night. We can call this the lazy girl’s seed starting method. I wanted to make sure the seedlings were getting their 12-16 hours of sunlight, but I don’t always wake up that early and sometimes go to bed very early…your girl is tired.
I also used a shoe rack from Target that I’ve had for several years, flipped upside down, to mount all of my lights to and set my seeds on.
Hardening Off
Something else I’ve majorly underestimated in past years is hardening seedlings off. I never did much research on weather and timing, and always just set my seedlings outside for a while a day or two before I planned to plant them (or just the day I planned to plant them…). This year, I decided to harden seedlings off the right way, and it helps to acclimate the seedlings to their new weather without sending them into shock.