I’ve been starting seeds for a few months now here at Chiot’s Run. They’re all lined up on the front porch getting hardened off and soon they’ll be planted in the garden. After receiving numerous request on my blog for a seed starting series I finally took the plunge (even though I don’t consider myself an expert seed starter in any manner).
If you’re interesting in learning more about starting seeds, head on over there to my Seed Starting 101 series. If you’re a veteran seed starter, head on over and comment, the new gardeners will really appreciate your wisdom and advice on this topic. We’ll be discussing the art of starting plants from seeds all week long. We started Monday and Tuesday with:
Seed Starting 101: Why Start from Seed
Seed Starting 101: Getting Started
Today we’re discussing containers in Seed Starting 101: Containers and later this week we’ll be discussing, soil mixes, needs of seeds, diseases, and a few more.
Do you start a lot of plants from seed? Would you consider yourself a beginner or an expert, or do you sit somewhere in between?
Good Morning!
I have started plants by seed and cuttings for years. I cannot consider myself an expert though. I find no matter how much I think I know, there is always a ton more to learn. I love the heirloom plants and have tremendous success with them 🙂 I am teaching my third gardening class next week, and I hope it will not only be a teaching experience, but a learning one as well.
Yikes—definitely not an expert. I have started my seeds indoors for about twelve years, with a varying degree of success each season. 😉
Living in PA, I always start my peppers and tomatoes inside so I will have enough time to harvest before the fall frost comes along. Everything else gets started from seed outdoors when it is warm enough.
I’m great at starting veggie seeds but have very limited success with any flowers except the easy ones like nasturtiums and sunflower…not sure what my problem is with flowers.
I would love to try doing mine in soil blocks next year…I’m getting tired of pots…I’m off to check our your posts, thanks Susy! Kim
I am also flower-seed-starting deficient. I’m a beginner but seem to be anal retentive enough to succeed with herbs and some veggies so far. Well, my success also improved when I could move sprouts outside to prevent my cats from eating them. Sigh.
Very very much a newbie, and have had limited success. My first year in my home, I moved in the early summer so I bought seedlings from one of my local farmers. All went well that year. The next year, I started my own seeds for various veg, and had very limited success – oddly, the lettuces were the hardest?? This year, I’m focusing on more herbs, which I started from seed (so far so good) and I’ll be getting some seedlings from my local farmers again. Seed starting, it seems so elusive somehow, with all the variables.
I always start from seed and only use nursery plants as backups if there’s something I absolutely can’t stand to be without in any given year. I also buy hard-to-start herbs like sage from the nursery. I’m still a beginner, though, and this is my first year in this location, so I’m still figuring out what works best started outdoors vs. started indoors under lights. I love the early start that starting indoors gives, but the incessant transplanting can get old, especially when you have twenty or fifty lettuces to set out. On the other hand, the thinning of seedlings can get pretty laborious, and I have seen some plants get eaten to shreds by snails or caterpillars before they even get a chance to get started, whereas plants that have started indoors are tough enough to take it.
At the end of the day, I can’t imagine not starting from seed. Setting aside the cost, I would hate to miss out on that wonderful moment when the baby plants poke up through the dirt, watching them get their first true leaves, and so on. When I see a big, thick, tomato vine in the nursery, already starting to flower, I think, “Well, that’s fine if you want home-grown tomatoes tomorrow, but you’re missing out on so much!”
Lately I’ve been having very good success with starting seeds. I learned a method called “Winter Sowing”. Basically you plant them in containers like mike or soda bottles. Done correctly, It’s like a mini greenhouse. I keep the jugs outside until I want to transplant them. The best part, they are already hardened off. I have wintersowen lettuces, spinach, onions, cabbages several kinds of broccoli, cosmos, foxglove, snapdragons and poppies to name a few.
I have also started seeds in “jiffy pots”, under the lights. I have basil, lavenders, heirloom tomatoes and summer squash.
I grow pretty much everything from seed on our urban farm. Last fall and this spring I’ve started having success with the difficult herbs like old varieties of sage and lavendar, and I’m now proving to be adept at growing ornamental grasses. My biggest key to success is soil. I’ve worked with clay, sand, loam, compost, bagged potting soil… What I grow in makes all the difference in how well plants surviving the starting and transplanting process, and the end result tastes better. You really can taste the difference in your growing medium from year to year. This year’s crops are already twice their normal size and in gorgeous condition due to the homemade chicken compost and mulch we’re using. If something doesn’t grow to my satisfaction, our eleven chickens delight in disposing of it for us, and so goes the wheel of compost!
I read somewhere (probably in one of the hundreds of gardening and farming books I own) that a farmer doesn’t actually grow plants and animals, s/he cultivates healthy soil.
Just want to say what a great blog you got here!
I’ve been around for quite a lot of time, but finally decided to show my appreciation of your work!
Thumbs up, and keep it going!
Cheers
Christian, iwspo.net