Tutorial: Seed starting Part 2

Kate,
I love the bag. I hope you get the iron thing resolved as well, most frustrating! Well, it's time to transplant my seedlings. We transplant to provide more room for the root system and to move them into separate containers so they will be easier to plant in the garden. We usually don't transplant all of the plants, but pick the strongest ones.


As you can see in the photo, they've grown quite a bit. The larger ones are the zucchini, cucumber, cantaloupe and pumpkin. The smaller ones that you see are the cauliflower and tomatoes. I'm still waiting on the peppers. The germination is longer on those and I hope they come up!!
So here's how to do it...

I get some of those empty plastic pony packs or you can use the jiffy pots that you can plant right in the ground. We reuse our pony packs...I'm not sure the experts would recommend it, but it's worked fine for us. Also, keep a pencil handy...you'll need it. If planting indoors, I use newspaper to cover my work space...you can see that in the background :)

After filling the pots you are using with potting soil, make a hole with the pencil in the center of the pot.

Next, carefully use the pencil to help loosen the roots of the seedling and while lifting carefully just under the leaves, pick the plant out of the dirt (you can carefully pick it up by the leaves). MAKE SURE YOU HANDLE IT CAREFULLY...DON'T PINCH OFF THE STEM OF THE PLANT. I never pinch when lifting...that is where the pencil comes in handy.



With the help of the pencil, place the roots in the hole and lower the plant. We do bury ours deep so that they don't get as "leggy" as they grow, and they'll have a better root system.


As you will notice, my tomatoes are buried deep...not much showing above the dirt.
Now we leave them by the window under the fluorescent light. I do think the light is working better this year than just the light from the window. Our plants have grown toward the window in past years, but we haven't noticed that this year.

I am also going to start leeks, acorn squash and basil this week...so excited to try those things. I've never planted leeks before so that will be fun! I'll keep you posted on how the hoop house is coming. I'm hoping to make some great progress this week!
Love,
Amy

Tutorial: Starting Seeds for the Garden

Dear Kate,
It's time to start thinking about the garden, so that is what we did last week! We decided to plant our seeds indoors so that they'll be ready to move into the garden in 6-8 weeks or possibly the hoop house sooner than that. This is how we did it.

I started with a flat planting tray, potting soil, seeds, a pencil, and Popsicle sticks to mark my rows and label the seeds. Some of the planting trays have holes, so if you get one that does, make sure something is put under it to catch any water.


After filling the tray with potting soil, we pushed a pencil down to leave an impression in the dirt to plant our seeds in.

We placed the seeds in the impression spacing only about 1/2" apart. We will later move the small plants to containers so they will have more space for growing. We will only transplant the best plants at that time, so I am not to particular about numbers and spacing at this point.


After covering the seeds with soil, we write on the Popsicle stick what we planted and then place at the beginning of where those seeds are. I usually break the stick in half to make them more manageable. Then we sprinkle them carefully with water...a spray bottle works great. Be careful not to wash away your seeds!

We put them in front of the window that gets the most sun. South facing would be ideal, but we don't have one, so we use our west window. We also added a fluorescent light this year to see how that works. It is on during our waking hours. We also covered them with a plastic cover that came with the tray. It helps to keep them moist, I haven't watered them since planting.



This is how they look after five days! Some are looking good and others haven't sprouted, but should soon. I planted squash, zucchini, cantaloupe, cucumbers, cauliflower, pumpkins, peppers (several types), tomatoes (several types), gourds and sunflowers. I'll post again when we're ready to transplant.
Happy Gardening!
Amy