Starting Seeds for the Garden

Isn't it amazing how excited you can become when the seeds you so cautiously dropped exactly (??) 1/4" into the potting soil, oh so delicately watered, and positioned oooh sooo carefully under the grow light  (not too close, not too far away) finally come up?

I didn't realize how quickly lettuce sprouts - in just 3 days, I have arugula seedlings. Teeny tiny seedlings, but they're there nonetheless.  By the 4th day, the rest of the lettuce varieties came up - butterhead (how yummy does that sound?), Tom Thumb, oak leaf, Bullet (that's a romaine and you can see how it got named) and one called Victoria Springs. By mid-summer, when it starts to get really warm, I'll have gotten several months of salad greens from just two dozen seedlings - picking the outer leaves and leaving the main 'stem' to keep growing.  Of course, the head lettuces are a one-shot harvest, but they're so good, I can't resist growing them.

Have you ever started seeds?  Every Spring and Summer I'm impressed by how fearless nature is - some of the seeds I plant are no bigger than a dust mote (I'm talking to you, Lobelia!) but they send down their little roots and push up through the potting soil to make beautiful plants to brighten my yard and fill my kitchen.  Every year, the same process consistently occurs - if I do my part well.

If you want to join the growing crowd of seed starters, you'll need a bag of seedling mix, some kind of 'pot' to put the mix into, and seeds of plants that will grow in your area. If you have any kind of scooper and some plastic, you're set.

Seedling mix is lighter than potting soil so it helps the seeds push through to the light - you'll be much more successful if you pick some up at any gardening store. If you have small containers (the store-bought black plastic kind are not the only choice), be sure they have a hole for drainage and aren't too big - the seeds seem to do better when their roots don't have as far to reach.

Fill your containers with the seedling mix, tamp it down and follow the seed packet's directions for depth. Once the seed is planted, tamp it down again so it's in contact with the soil. Water the surface when needed (the top can dry out between watering but over-watering will suffocate the seeds & they'll rot in the ground) and, once the seedlings come up, water only from the bottom.

Put the containers near a bright window and cover with a plastic bag, plastic wrap or a sheet of plastic or glass. Water will condense and drip back onto the soil and that's okay as long as the soil isn't standing in water 24/7. You're aiming for damp, not drenched.

If you have a grow light (or a shop light), the seedlings will be especially happy. If you can, buy one bulb  that glows pink (an "aquarium light") and one that glows blue (a regular fluorescent) - they will cover the range of light waves that plants need.

I always make a little chart of the seeds planted: the type, the planting date, the expected germination date range, and the date they sprout. Before I did the chart, I sometimes gave up on the seeds too soon, not knowing that they would take longer to sprout. But sure to put some kind of a label in or on the pots unless you're only growing one type.  My family loves to tell the story of the year the labels were mixed up on the pepper plants - hot peppers and sweet peppers all growing together and we didn't know what we would be getting. It was like taking all the labels off the canned goods in the pantry! I never want to repeat that experience.

In June I'll be planting my seedlings outside and late in the Summer I'll be saving seeds from my garden.  I'll be posting photos so you can see if my Summer garden grows as well as my Spring plans!

Here's a great PNW publication to download:  https://catalog.extension.oregonstate.edu/pnw170 (when the page opens, click on "View it now" for the free download)