Seed starting is easy and rewarding. It’s a great way to get a leg up on the growing season or add an unusual heirloom or ornamental to your garden. There’s still plenty of time to start your tomatoes, peppers, herbs, hollyhocks, and more.

Here are some tried and true DOs and DON’Ts for seed starting:

DO
– Use new seeds. Older seeds may not germinate well or at all. Onion seeds keep for a year or two. Other vegetable seeds, including tomato, cabbage, cucumber, lettuce and radish, can stay viable for four to five years.

–Start with clean containers. To help prevent diseases, use new containers to start seeds or thoroughly scrub used containers, soak them for 20 minutes in a mix of nine parts water to one part bleach, then rinse thoroughly.

– Provide some heat. Start seeds on top of a radiator or refrigerator or use a heating mat. Warm soils helps seeds germinate more quickly and more uniformly.

– Keep the potting mix moist. Water with lukewarm water and keep mix moist but not soggy.

– Provide plenty of light. Use fluorescent lights and keep them 4 to 6 inches above the plants. Lights should be on for about 14 hours per day. You can find inexpensive fixtures at your local hardware store. (For fancier grow lights and stands, check out Midwest Homebrew and Hydroponics in St. Louis Park.)

– Feed seedlings. Once the seedlings have a few sets of leaves, feed with a water-soluble general fertilizer mixed at quarter strength once a week. (Pale or yellowish seedlings may indicate a lack of nutrients.)

– Thin seedlings if you’ve sown them thickly.

– Once seedlings get a few inches tall, toughen them up with an oscillating fan for a few hours every day.

DON’T
– Start too early. Most seeds should be started four to eight weeks before they can be planted outdoors. Read the packet and follow sowing directions.

– Use regular garden soil. It retains too much water, which can cause seeds to fail. Seedlings grow better in a lighter mix. Use a sterilized soil-less mix designed for seed starting.

– Rely on window light alone. The seeds will probably germinate, but unless you have a very bright window and turn the seedlings daily, they may grow tall and spindly. For sturdy seedlings, use a fluorescent shop light fixture with standard cool white tubes.

– Overwater. Soggy seeds are more prone to disease.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008 at 6:14 am and is filed under Seed starting. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.