Tuesday, March 1, 2011

seed starting

If you are a gardener and start your transplants from seed you have already started some or you getting your seeds and seed starting supplies in order.

I mentioned before that I started broccoli seeds and I wanted to share how I did it without buying new supplies, except for the seed starting soil.

At the diner I'm always buying plastic boxes of spinach, berries and lettuce. I noticed that some of the plastic boxes have holes in them, usually the berry boxes, while the spinach and lettuce boxes don't, all have lids. I was recycling the boxes until the light bulb switched on last November...

Why not place a box with holes inside a box without holes, this would allow for watering from the bottom and allow for drainage. I started collecting boxes.




This picture does not show it but I did add some pebbles in the box without holes to allow for drainage. I filled the box with holes with seed starting soil, watered it, and planted groupings of 3 seeds about 4 inches apart, 18 in all. Put the box in a warm spot and when the seeds germinate I moved the box to a bright window and/or under growing lights.




I'm going to keep the seedlings in the boxes until it's time to harden them off and then transplant into the garden. I'm trying to avoid potting them into little 4 inch pots...hope this works.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh, I haven't even had time to think about starting seeds. Do you think winter will ever end and we will get a chance to plant them?

Margaret said...

I sure hope so. Winter just hit about 2 weeks ago here with a deep freeze. These little seedlings won't be ready for another month or so...fingers crossed Spring will have arrived by then.