Vegetable Gardening (89 page)

The packing date tells you the year in which the seeds were packed. Always buy this year's seeds for best germination. Even though 1- to 2-year-old seeds will still grow well, you shouldn't be paying full price for them.

Starting Seeds Indoors

To start seeds indoors, all you need is a container, soil, seeds, moisture, warmth, and light. Oh, if only everything in life were this simple. Check out Part II to find out when to start specific vegetables indoors — remember, timing is everything. Here are the basic steps for planting seeds indoors:

1. Sow the seeds in containers filled with sterile soil (which garden centers call a
germinating mix
).

Keep the seeds in a warm place until
germination
(when the first shoots start to push through the soil).

2. After the seeds germinate, move the seedlings to a well-lit location (preferably under lights).

While your seedlings are growing in their well-lit location, be sure to keep them moist.

3. Thin crowded seedlings.

When the seedlings' heights are three times the diameter of your pot, transplant the seedlings to a larger container.

4. Acclimate the seedlings to outdoor conditions.

Adapting your seedlings to the weather conditions in the great outdoors is called
hardening off.

5. Plant the seedlings in your garden.

Piece of cake; go have a drink. Now on to the details, which I cover in the following sections. (Be sure to check out the later section "Transplanting Indoor Seedlings and Starter Plants" as well.)

Picking a pot to plant in

Any container that holds several inches of soil and that you can punch drainage holes in is suitable for growing seedlings. Several low-cost possibilities include milk cartons, paper or Styrofoam cups, cottage-cheese containers, and homemade wooden
flats,
which are shallow, wide, seedling trays. Flats enable you to start many seedlings in a small space, which is helpful when you water or move the plants. After you plant the seeds in the flats, the seedlings stay there until planting time.

Garden stores and most mail-order garden catalogs sell a wide variety of plastic, fiber, peat, and Styrofoam flats and containers that satisfy just about any budget. You can even purchase pots made out of cow manure. Yum. Figure 13-1 shows you some flats that you can buy, along with the appropriate lights (which I discuss later in this chapter).

You can use individual peat pots for plants like cucumbers, which don't like to have their roots disturbed during transplanting. Similarly, for gardeners who put a premium on convenience, premade growing cubes are a good idea. But I have to be honest; I'm not a huge fan of peat pots or peat cubes (compressed peat pots that expand when soaked in water). The idea behind a peat pot is that once planted (pot and all) in the garden, the plants' roots grow through the sides of the wet pot, and as the season progresses, the peat naturally breaks down and disappears. But sometimes when I've used them, the peat didn't break down. In the fall when I pulled up my plants, the peat pots were still intact and some roots were constricted in the pots. If you still want to give peat pots and cubes a try, follow the guidelines in the later section "Making the big move to the ground."

Before you sow any seeds, sterilize your flats and pots (especially ones that you've used before) to prevent the fungus called
damping off
from killing your seedlings. (See the later sidebar "Dealing with damping off" for more on this soil-borne disease.) Dip the containers in a solution of 9 parts water to 1 part household bleach and then rinse them in clear running water.

Using a mix that doesn't include soil

The most practical seed-starting mediums for gardeners are the commercially prepared soilless or peatlite mixes that are sold in most garden stores as
potting soil
or
germinating mix.
As the name implies, the mix doesn't contain any true soil. Instead, it's usually a combination of peat moss, vermiculite or perlite, ground limestone (which brings the pH to proper levels, as I discuss in Chapter 14), fertilizer, and sometimes compost, which is good for plant growth. Potting soil is lightweight, is free of disease organisms that may be present in true garden soil, and holds moisture well but at the same time offers good aeration and drainage.

Don't use garden soil to start seeds indoors. Garden soil isn't light enough (that is, it doesn't have enough air spaces) and may contain insects or diseases that can kill your tender seedlings.

Sowing your seeds

After you've chosen the proper container and soilless soil (or
growing medium
), follow these steps to sow your seeds:

1. Fill a container with moistened growing medium to within 1/2 inch of the top of the container.

Soilless mixes are dusty and difficult to wet initially. Pour the mix into a plastic bag, and then add enough warm water to moisten the mix but not turn it into a drippy mud pie. Mix the water and growing medium with your hands or a strong wooden spoon, closing off the opening of the bag as much as possible to keep the dust in. Remove the soil from the bag and place it in the container. Gently firm down the medium with a flat piece of wood, such as a ruler.

2a. If you're planting seeds in a flat, follow these directions to sow your seeds:

Make shallow
furrows
(rowlike impressions) with a blunt stick or by pressing the narrow edge of a ruler into the medium. Then sow the seeds according to these guidelines:

• Sow small seeds, such as lettuce, at about five to eight seeds per inch if you intend to transplant them into different containers soon after they come up. Sow larger seeds, such as melons, at three to four seeds per inch.

• Sow seeds more sparingly, at three to four seeds per inch, if you intend to thin and leave them in the same container (rather than transplant into a larger container).

Either method — transplanting the seeds into a new container or leaving them in the same container — works fine; it's just a matter of what pots and room you have. Transplanting into individual pots takes up more room but allows larger plants such as tomatoes more room for their roots to grow. Smaller plants, such as lettuce, grow fine when thinned and left in their original containers.

You can
broadcast
(randomly spread) seeds rather than plant them in rowlike trenches, but row planting and thinning are easier.

2b. If you're planting seeds in individual containers, here's how you sow:

• Put two to four seeds in each container.

• Later, thin the seedlings, leaving the strongest one.

3. After sowing the seeds at the correct depth (see the appendix), cover them with fine potting soil or vermiculite.

Label each row or container because many seedlings look alike. You can purchase labels from a nursery or through a mail-order catalog, or you can use old ones from previously purchased nursery transplants. Using a waterproof pen, record the type of vegetable, the variety, and the date that the seed was planted.