Re: Starting Seeds Indoors
I save the flats from my garden center purchases for sowing seeds, also the small cell-paks from annuals to transplant viable seedlings for growing onward. Clean them carefully with bleach, of course, before storing.
I begin by sowing the seeds in the larger flats, filled with about 2" of soil - not very much at all, moisten the soil
lightly with fungicide-treated water and slip the entire flat into a
dark/opaque garbage bag - Yes! Seeds germinate
in the dark– with a few 6-8” stakes or popsicle sticks popped into the soil to keep the plastic lifted off the plants while they germinate. Twist end closed to seal. Place on top of something gently warm and wait. Peeking allowed after a week or ten days.
Remove the plastic after it looks like most seeds have sprouted.
The gentle bottom heat thingy is a very good trick, and you might find that it gets slightly warm enough, say, on top of your fridge to nurse the flat along. You don’t need hot, just warmish. We have central gas heating with large conduits that run under the main floor, so I have found the perfect spot on my dining room floor where a warm conduit runs underneath from our furnace, if I can keep the cats from settling onto the cozy flats (more stakes under the plastic work well...!)
When the seedlings have put out two little leaves, the fun begins – I thin out the weaklings, leave the good ones to grow on for a few more days, then slip on a pair of thin latex gloves to pluck each good one cautiously from the soil and delicately transplant two or three at a time into each cell-pak cell, place in a sunny window and begin watering, etc. as usual. I’ll thin the three down to one good one in each cell.
Now, because I’m at North 44* latitude, spring can be late and late frosts happen, so planting the plants outside can be tricky, and meanwhile they can start to get awfully leggy and weak in the thin window sunshine... So when the days get sunnier and a tad milder outside, I rig up a cheap and cheerful temporary cold frame on my patio: prop a pole onto my 18” high patio wall in the sunshine (you can use a sturdy box as a prop) and drape some heavy clear plastic from the hardware store over it, tent style. I pin down the edges lightly with a few bricks, leave a bit loose for ventilation, pop the plants inside and let them enjoy the brighter sun and thermal warmth that’s trapped under the plastic. Need more space? Use two parallel poles, each braced at the top/bottom between two bricks .....
If it looks like we’re getting another overnight freeze, I drag out a mechanic’s “trouble light” hanging lightbulb (100W) with an extension cord and leave the light on overnight. Or toss a blanket over the plastic. That’s all it takes to prevent freezing the plants, as long as you don’t have too much “airspace” to heat by having set your ridgepole(s) too high. As the weather warms up, I’ll unfurl the plastic more during the day and replace it at night. (You don’t want to cook the plants, either – and the closed space can heat up.) And when the time is right, I’ll have some nicely hardened-off plants to pop into my garden. And my cold-frame can vanish for another year....
Hydroponics sounds wonderful, but it would require power for the lighting, etc. I don’t know how reliable that would be
in extremis. Nice stuff, though.
Cheers,
Selene