You might think growing from seed is a practice only for advanced gardeners, but it isn’t difficult to get the basics down. Rule number one: Don’t sow too early or your plants will be leggy and overgrown long before you can transplant them into the garden.
In my experience, if the seed packet recommends sowing four to six weeks before the last frost date, it’s better to pick the four- rather than the six-week date. (To calculate the sowing date, count back from your region’s last frost date; for me in southern Ontario, that’s the third week of May.)
Choosing seeds
Annuals and vegetables are the easiest to grow. Perennials, however, are trickier because most need a period of cold to break dormancy and take a couple of seasons to reach flowering size.
Containers
Propagating kits (available at garden centres or hardware stores) include four or six cell packs, a tray to hold the packs and a plastic lid. If reusing containers, wash with soap, water and a little bleach, and make sure they have drainage holes. Newly sprouted seedlings may look alike, so label containers as you sow.
Sowing medium
Use fresh, sterile seed-starting mixture (available from garden centres). Moisten mixture about an hour before sowing; it shouldn’t be soggy, just as damp as a wrung-out sponge.
Follow directions
Seed packets contain information on timing, lighting requirements, sowing depth, and optimal germination and growing temperatures.
Keep moisture in
Lightly water freshly sown flats, then cover with plastic dome lid, or if reusing containers, place them inside a plastic zip-lock bag. At the first signs of germination, uncover or remove from plastic bag.
Watering
When the top of the soil looks dry, water carefully using a small watering can with a fine spray. Avoid overwatering: soggy soil and poor air circulation can lead to damping off, a fungal disease that can kill baby plants. Prevention is best, but the fungicide No Damp can also help.
Light
A bright window works, but grow lights or cool fluorescent tubes are better. Keep seedlings about eight to 10 centimetres from light source to prevent plants from becoming too spindly. Plug lights into an automatic timer set for 16 hours on, eight hours off.
Fertilizer
When seedlings have two sets of true leaves (the first leaves are called cotyledons—or seed leaves—so wait for the true ones), start feeding once a week with a balanced (20-20-20), water-soluble fertilizer at half-strength, working up to full strength after a few weeks.
Resources
The Gardener’s A-Z Guide to Growing Flowers from Seed to Bloom by Eileen Powell, Storey Books, 528 pages, softcover, $31.50.
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6 Comments
Gardening woes I enjoy gardening even though the place I live has an over abundance of insects from the cut worm, earwig, beetles, ants, and a bunch of others. The ants I believe are the worse of all the rest put together. They are black ants and to prevent them from destroying my turnips which they still managed to ruin half of the crop before they could get started and half ruined the bottoms during growth. I also have troubles with sour bugs as I call them. I had an apple tree just starting to produce and at first the ants would climb the tree and eat the blossoms before they could produce any apples I put cooking oil around the trunk and that kept them the second year from destroying the blossoms before they could grow apples. The next year after I got one small crop the trees leaves started turning brown mid summer. I watered think it must be too dry but it kept dying so I dug around the bottom to see if I could find what was troubling the plant and there was a lot of dry rotten roots with hundreds of Sour bugs infesting them so I cut out as much of that as I could and put some Gunk I got from Hardware for splicing trees where I thought it might bleed and also keep out the bugs. It was like roofing cement but any way it just kept dying so I lost the whole tree. I planted a Pine tree where that apple tree was. If you have any suggestions as to how to rid some of the ant It may be helpful because I’ve tried lots of things now with little really good results. I put salt between the rows of potatoes and turnips to keep the ants down last year and it worked long enough to get them up good. They still made furrows in the vegetable bulb though unless that was earwigs.
I have seedlings that are starting to get spindly, they now have 4 leaves on them should I be fertilizing them? I read that creating a gentle breeze around them helps them become more sturdy Would like your comments. Thanks
Sometimes it's best to let the professionals do the tough work with hard-to-grow plants and vegetables. You simply cannot do as good a job with flowers such as geranium, petunia, biannuals, and perennials which normally do not flower from seed during the first year. Some seeds need special treatment even to germinate. However, if you need one variety of annual in quantity, a pack of seeds can easily produce 4 dozen plants. Always choose the F1 hybrid. Always choose the All-America select varieties. Choose varieties that are suitable for the sun conditions of their eventual site. Tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and broccoli will always be better in the farmers' market than you can grow. For your limited space choose culinary herbs, peppers, and specialty vegetables that are not normally grown by farmers.
Sometimes it's best to let the professionals do the tough work with hard-to-grow plants and vegetables. You simply cannot do as good a job with flowers such as geranium, petunia, biannuals, and perennials which normally do not flower from seed during the first year. Some seeds need special treatment even to germinate. However, if you need one variety of annual in quantity, a pack of seeds can easily produce 4 dozen plants. Always choose the F1 hybrid. Always choose the All-America select varieties. Choose varieties that are suitable for the sun conditions of their eventual site. Tomatoes, onions, carrots, lettuce, cabbage, spinach, and broccoli will always be better in the farmers' market than you can grow. For your limited space choose culinary herbs, peppers, and specialty vegetables that are not normally grown by farmers.
sounds like you have a moisture problem in you yard ralph-septic tank maybe? i had a similar problem at a house i lived in once when i first started gardening. we had ants, earwigs, woodbugs (your sour bugs) galore...but i do know that you shouldnt put any kind of 'gunk ' on a tree to stop it from bleeding.you should check out last years article in Gardens West about trees/arborists. very good in depth info on this. solve moisture problem (and minimize piles of yard debris/compost)=way way less bugs.
you might be needing more light. get a shop light and suspend it @ 2 inches above the seedlings, fertilizing could depend on what type of plants they are. maybe compost tea might be needed, it is gentler on the seedling but still delivers the nutrients it needs to grow strong and healthy.