Seed Starting Adventure

This was our Friday night project:

Admiring these

And building this!

 Yesterday I found a sweet deal on Craigslist for these shelves and I knew I had to have them.  For $20 each I now have a great start to a seed starting station.  The lights were also a Craigslist find for $10 each!

This year Andy and I dove head first into starting seeds this year.  Neither of us had started seeds before so we were pretty clueless.  After lots of reading we excitedly put on the calender of when to start what seeds.  This past weekend was very exciting because we got to start our tomato and pepper seeds!

Want an easy "How To" on seed starting?  Great!

Step 1: Moisten your soil.  We used Jiffy Seed Starting Mix (it's great!). Then put the soil in your seed starting medium.  You can use various things for this.  Egg cartons, newspaper, peat pots, etc...  I found some of these seed starting kits at the thrift store.

Step 2:  Decide on what you are going to grow.  I would recommend doing research on the proper time to start your specific plant/vegetable.  Number one mistake made by amateur seed starters is starting seeds too early.  

Step 3:  Dig holes into each pod.  We needed a 1/4" hole, so we used the edge of a pen to get the perfect depth.

Step 4:  Plant your seeds.  Personally I put three seeds per pod.  But it is recommended to do anywhere from 1-4 seeds.  Note:  Seeds are small this buggers.  Small, delicate hands work best for this step.  :)

Step 5:  Use a mister to water.  Just pouring water can wash out the seeds at this stage.

Step 6:  Put some sort of plastic of the top.  These kits come with a lovely lid and put under your lights.  (we use regular fluorescent lights, as we've read often that you don't need grow lights...  So far so good!)

 Step 7:  As soon as your seeds germinate and sprout, take the lid off and put back under the light.  Enjoy the beauty!

A few side notes on starting seeds:

1. mist only when the soil feels dry.  You do not want to over water and have your plants dampen off.
2. Have the lights about 1-2" above the plants... no more!
3. Once the seedling have started strong, decide on the strongest one in each pod and pinch out the weak ones.  All energy and nutrients will now go to that one plant.
4. Once they get their first true leaves you can start fertilizing them every other week with diluted fertilizer.  Andy and I are going to use Bat Guano this year!
5. When it comes to the week before planting harden of your plants.  This mean putting your plants outside in the sun for a a little bit more each day.

Now a few notes about Tomatoes... my silly amateur mistake this past week:

1. Tomato seeds germinate in the dark!  I read this after the fact that I had them under the fluorescent light for a few days...nice one Lindsay!  Once I removed them from the light and covered them with cardboard to block out any light, they sprouted the next day!
2. Tomato (and pepper) seeds need heat.  It's only 63-65 degrees in our basement, so we broke down and bought (new- so unlike us) head pads.  These heat pads are great and they help keep the soil 10-20 degrees higher thus helping our tomato and pepper seeds germinate faster.  

Our peppers have yet to sprout.  it's been about 6 days so I'm hoping this happens soon!  I have read that pepper plants are really hard to start.

If by chance we fail miserably at starting seeds this year, we will have to buy the plants at the nursery and give ourselves the "Better luck next time" speech.  BUT, if all goes well... well, than we just saved ourselves some big bucks and confirmed that we are nothing but Rockstars.