\n\t\t\t\tVoila! \n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\nOnce your container has been filled, lightly firm the soil, creating a place for the seeds to be placed.\u00a0 If you are like me and starting many seeds at once in a plug tray, I find it helpful to take another seed starting container of the same size (such as a 6-cell insert or a whole plug tray) and gently set that on top of the filled tray to help the seed starting medium settle into its container and create a place to place my seeds. You may also plant seeds in rows or broadcast them over the surface of a wider container, or a seed tray without the 6-pack inserts.\u00a0 If planting seeds in rows in a wide, flat container, make furrows for the seeds about an inch or two apart to make the best use of your space.\u00a0 If planting more than one variety of seed in the same container, be sure to mark which rows belong to which variety.<\/p>\n
Place your seeds into the container, then cover with more soil if necessary.\u00a0 Your seed packet will tell you how much, but if you don’t have specific information for your seed the general rule is to plant the seed 1-2 times its diameter. Teeny tiny seeds may not need to be covered at all, but rather gently pressed into the planting medium.\u00a0 I water all of my seeds once the seed has been set in the planting medium, and the watering helps press the seed into the soil instead of doing it by hand.<\/p>\n
Watering:<\/strong><\/p>\nOnce your seeds have been planted, this is a great time to water them. Be sure that whatever container you use has holes for proper drainage.\u00a0 I like to give my seeds a thorough watering at this point and then sometimes I cover them with plastic wrap (not wrap tightly, just cover to retain humidity).\u00a0 From this point on, any watering will be done with a spray bottle.\u00a0 Generally, I don’t need to water the trays again that have plastic wrap on them until the seeds sprout, but this can vary considering some seeds can take up to three weeks to germinate.\u00a0 I avoid heavy watering from there on out though, to prevent the seeds from rotting.<\/p>\n
Light:<\/strong><\/p>\nSome seeds require light to germinate, such as celery.\u00a0 For these seeds, they get put right under lights for 12-16 hours per day as soon as they are planted.\u00a0 Other seeds don’t require light until they sprout, so they are set in the greenhouse on an unlit shelf until I notice the first germination occurring, then they are placed under lights.\u00a0 All seedlings do require light, and in many cases late winter sunlight coming through the window is not sufficient.\u00a0 The closer to spring you get, the better the sun will be, but for the early season stuff you will need supplemental lighting. I have found great success using fluorescent light fixtures, also called shop lights, and I have two of these per shelf on many shelves in my greenhouse.\u00a0 You can choose to use grow lights, but they are unnecessary for sprouting seeds.\u00a0 If you want to grow plants to the point of flowering or fruiting, you will need grow lights.<\/p>\n
Heat:<\/strong><\/p>\nCheck the optimal soil temperature for seed germination and growing (these may be different) and plan accordingly.\u00a0 Place your seed tray in a suitable location – such as on top of your refrigerator, near a wood stove or other heat source, or on top of a heat mat made for seed trays (keep the mat on 24 hours a day, and turn it off once your seeds sprout). Then, it’s time to wait.<\/p>\n
While You’re Waiting…<\/strong><\/p>\nCheck your seed trays twice per day to turn on\/off lights, check moisture and consider temperature to be sure it’s not too hot or cold.\u00a0 Make note of what seeds you started and when, then figure when you can expect to see sprouts poking through the soil. Once you notice seedlings poking through the dirt, it is usually safe to remove the plastic cover you may have been keeping on them for humidity and remove the heat mat, if you were using one.\u00a0 At this point, keeping the soil moist enough but not too wet is critical, especially once any protective coverings have been removed.\u00a0 If you have not yet placed your seeds under lights, once they sprout it is critical that they are able to be put under artificial or natural light. If using artificial light, set the light within a couple of inches of the tops of the seedlings, and raise the light as they grow. Seedlings should get about 16 hours of light per day.<\/p>\n
From here, maintain daily care.\u00a0 You may need to fertilize the seedlings after a few weeks, and depending on how fast they grow you may need to “pot up” or transplant the seedlings to a larger container before they are ready to head to the garden outside.\u00a0 We will talk about these things in later blog posts.<\/p>\n
Pictures:<\/strong><\/p>\nHere are some pictures of seeds in the process of sprouting.\u00a0 I set up a 4×8 greenhouse in the basement and placed four of the 4-shelved mini greenhouses in there (4ft wide) for shelving.\u00a0 Some of the shelves have 2-4ft shop light fixtures per shelf and I can fit 4 seed trays per shelf. In here I keep a oscillating fan and a radiant heater, to provide air circulation and temperature control.<\/p>\n
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\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
\n\t\t\t\tSeed trays under light\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tView of half of my basement greenhouse\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tFirst sprouts of the year!\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t\t\n\t\t\t\t
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Starting your own plants from seed is the most economical method of growing food.\u00a0 If you buy a pack of yellow onions for say, $2-something per pound,you get maybe 8 or so onions.\u00a0 But you can buy a pack of seeds that has 300+ seeds for $2.75 or so and grow tons more.\u00a0 It makes…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=497"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":509,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/497\/revisions\/509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.k7farm.com\/victorygardener\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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