Seed Starting the Easy Way

This is one of my favorite times of year, I love when the promise of spring lets me justify playing in dirt. I love the magic of a seed popping itself out of the ground. The miracle of this never stops astounding me. As you can imagine, I spend the next couple of months in a kind of perpetual bliss.

Tonight, I spent most of the evening starting my cold weather seeds. Lots of different kinds of veggie and herb seeds. I choose to start most of all my plants indoors. There are a couple of reasons for this. First of all, it gives me a head start on the season. Additionally, it lets me have more control over their growing conditions. Before I go to plant them out in my raised beds, I'll know exactly what I have. This is important to me because I have limited space in my garden. By starting my seeds indoors, I can space them in my garden exactly how I want, I don't have to thin out plants and I don't have to worry about poor germination because I'll know that I all ready have a plant to put there. There are some seeds that don't do well being transplanted and are best suited directly planted in the garden. Some are obvious, such as root vegetables like carrots or radish. Some are less obvious, such as cilantro and corn. For the most part though, I put most of my plants into my garden as transplants.

Starting seeds inside is easy and doesn't require much special equipment. You can start your plants out in a lot of different containers. Personally, I use the seed trays that you can buy at a seed store. But butter tubs, yogurt containers, egg cartons even Dixie cups will work equally as well. Just make sure you have drainage holes in the bottom (and make sure you have this set in something to catch the drainage water.) Fill the container with a seed starting medium. I always buy this, you want it to be sterile and you don't want it to contain any fertilizer, organic or not. Seeds have all the nutrients it needs to get started, it can actually be detrimental for the plant to get too much food right after it sprouts. After they get their first set of true leaves, we will transplant these starts into larger containers, then we will give them some food.

After you've filled up the container with starter medium, place the seed in the medium. The seed package should tell you how deep to put the seed in. A good rule of thumb is the smaller seed the closer to the surface it should be planted, conversely the larger the seed the deeper it will go. A few seeds need sunlight to germinate, the package should tell you this. Make sure you label your seeds, I use whatever I have handy. Popsicle sticks make a cheap marker.

Now, you need to water the seeds. I always water my seeds from the bottom. Because I sell my extra plants, I need to make sure they are the correct plants, if I were to water from above, the medium could float into another tray. Also, once the seeds start to sprout, watering from above could facilitate a condition called damping off. So, I pour the water right into the drainage tray. The medium will soak the water up to the surface. Watch your containers for a couple of hours, adding water periodically until the surface of the containers show it's become damp.

It will take several days for your seeds to start to poke out of the soil, depending on the plant. Plants like lettuce should germinate in about 5 days, some like lavender germinate sporadically and could take up to two weeks. Be patient, during this waiting time, make sure the starter medium does not dry out. Find a happy balance, though, you don't want the seeds to be swimming in water either.

***I forgot to mention light. It is not necessary to have your seedlings in light to get them started. However, as soon as they start to sprout, put them in the sunniest location you can find. By a window or under grow lights will work, I've even taken my plants out in the morning and in again at night so get them in the sunlight.

Some of these plants, we will put outside soon after they get their true leaves (these will actually seem to you to be their second set of leaves, called the true leaves), such as the lettuce. Others we will transplant into larger containers and give them special treatment for a few more weeks in the house, such as tomato or eggplant.

Stay tuned, we are going to talk about how to plant in a cold frame and in a couple of posts, how to build a cold frame. They are easy and really useful for getting a jump start on the season.

Starting Perennial Seeds the Cold Moist Stratification Way

I love growing perennials. How can you not be grateful to a plant that returns year after year despite your neglect. Not only that but it gets larger and more beautiful along the way. I'm particularly enamored with perennials that are native. They are especially suited to the natural conditions of where i live and thrive despite my lack of care. So, you will tend to see a lot of posts on my blog about growing perennials.

This year, I've decided to start some perennials from seed. There are several ways to propagate plants, planting seeds is but one. Some of the seeds that I got don't require any pretreatment and I will just start them in seed starter when I'm ready. However, some of the seeds need to believe they have been in the ground over the winter in order to sprout. One way to do this is to actually plant them in the fall. This is a great way, it's easy and reliable. However, I want more control over where I plant the ones I'm keeping and also, plan to sell some of the extra plants. So, I'm going to start mine using cold, moist stratification. This will trick the seed into believing there has been a winter.

I'm experimenting with a couple of different ways to see which gives me better germination. The process is fairly simple but takes some advance planning. You need to start the seeds about 4-8 weeks in a cold place before you can plant them in your seed starter. All in all, this means it will take about 2-3 months before your seeds will actually germinate. To start the seeds you will need some baggies, paper towels and some sterilized medium - such as vermiculite or seed starter. I've chosen seed starter medium. Some seeds will need to be scarified before you start them, this means to scratch or weaken the seed casing. This should be noted on your seed packet if it is necessary.

For half of the seeds, I wet a piece of paper towel and just put the seeds directly on top of it. Make sure the paper towel is just damp and not soggy, once you put it in the plastic bag you do not want a lot of water sitting in the baggie. The water will not evaporate and you don't want your seeds sitting in water or they will rot, not sprout. For the other half of the seeds, I put a small amount of seed starter on the damp paper towel. I then placed the seeds on the medium, dampened a little more and then folded up the paper towel and put it in the baggie. Again, make sure the whole package is not too wet.

Then place in the refrigerator, I put mine in the fruit crisper drawer. They will be in here for several weeks, so you should check on them periodically. You want to make sure they don't dry out, or that they aren't staying too wet. Also, if they start to sprout while in the refrigerator go ahead and take them out of the refrigerator and plant them in whatever you are going to start them in.

In about 4-6 weeks, I'll be pulling these out and getting them planted in pots. So, stay tuned for more tutorials.

Food Politics

I was lucky enough to get to hear the wonderful author and food advocate Marion Nestle speak a couple of nights ago. If you are not familiar with her, you should take the time to become so. She is the nutrition chair at New York University, author of numerous books and host to the website Food Politics. Of her books, Food Politics is my favorite. It traces the complicated issue of how the food industry influences what food choices we have at the grocery store to eat. These issues are dictated by thirst for profit, not good nutritional policy. She also provides information to help consumers make good food choices for themselves and their families. Her newest book, Pet Food Politics: The Chihuahua in the Coal Mine, is an investigative report on the March 2007 pet food recall.

In her talk, she spent some time talking about her new book Pet Food Politics. Even if you don't have an animal which you buy pet food for, this issue should be important to you. During her investigation, Nestle was able to trace how pet food contaminates ended up back in the human food system. Pet food has vital wheat gluten added to it to increase the protein. The vital wheat in the contaminated pet food was adulterated with melamine, which is an industry byproduct that is cheap and mimics protein. This adulterate was coming from China. Melamine was causing bladder and kidney problems in these animals. At least as important is how melamine was getting into the human food supply. It is common practice for scrap pet food to be sold as livestock feed. On this occasion, the melamine ended up being fed to chickens, cows and fish., which ended up being eaten by humans.

Marion Nestle advocated that this is just one more indicator that it is necessary for a comprehensive farm to table food policy in the United States. Currently, the FDA and USDA are independent entities that have become fairly toothless because of restrictive legislation from Congress. Until this changes, individuals have to make smart food choices for themselves. Buying organic is one choice people make to have more faith in their food. I think choosing to buy locally, from farmers you know is arguably, even more important. Small, local farms take pride in their products. They also have to personally back up any product that they sell to individuals because you are able to ask the farmer questions, pass on favorable and unfavorable critiques, and you know where to find them if there is a problem. A lot more people are choosing to supplement their local purchases by growing more of their own food. This is where my mindset is, so a lot of the blogs I will be posting will be focused on helping people be able to do this. If you must buy from a grocery store, try to minimize the processed foods. Whole foods have less chance of being adulterated. Besides foods taste better when you prepare them yourself and they are much healthier.