I am so excited about seed starting this month!!!
The garden we have planned will be the biggest we have ever had. Up until now we have always lived on a suburban block with limited space. I’m sure it will be both a joy and a challenge to have so much space!
Seed starting itself is not new to me. I grew much of our vegetable garden from seeds back in Queensland and even grew a bunch extra to sell to the local hardware store.
I found it therapeutic to sit sowing seeds while our children played in the backyard, before and after school. It was that long, repetitive, quiet activity that soothes the hurried soul. And it was so satisfying to look back after an afternoon of work and see all my seed trays neatly lined up ready to grow yummy food for our family.
The Climate Makes a Difference with Seed Starting
My usual method was to set them up on a table under our house in a sunny spot. Our house was on stilts in the Old Queenslander style and there were plenty of sunny positions to start the seeds. We very rarely reached freezing temperatures where we lived in Queensland so I never had to bring the trays inside. The weather was just so mild.
Not so in Texas. It might be hot and humid in the summer but in our first winter here it got down to 13 degrees Fahrenheit, that is -10 degrees Celsius!! That, my friends, is pretty darn chilly! Colder than I have ever been in my life.
It is warming up now as we approach spring, but we are still having an occasional freeze overnight. So seed starting inside it is!
Being new to this whole thing, I did my research and learnt from people who have been doing this a very long time. I took a Seed Starting Course on the School of Traditional Skills with Rick Stone from Our Stoney Acres. It was very thorough and I learnt a lot.
So armed with this information and great anticipation of all the lovely little seeds sprouting their dear little heads out of the trays, I began!!
Seed Starting Materials
We used a set of metal shelves from Sam’s Club and purchased some fairly cheap shop lights from Amazon. My wonderful boys assembled it all for me, so I didn’t have to. They also set up a seed starting table for me in the mudroom, made from two saw horses and an old tabletop that we picked up for free at a garage sale.
I was given a whole stack of different seed starting trays. Some with coir cells that expand with water, some that you add seed starting mix to, some fiber pots. Many of these were systems I hadn’t tried before so I am very interested to try them and see how they go.
The mudroom is the room we store the firewood in and it has quite a bit of space. I bought some organic seed raising mix and got out all of the seeds I wanted to start inside.
Choosing the Seeds
My main emphasis was on tomatoes and capsicums (known in USA as sweet peppers) and other hot peppers like jalapeños. But I also sowed eggplant, leek and bunching onions and a variety of herbs.
For fun, I also started some things I have never grown before, like tomatillos and habaneros (a very spicy hot pepper). After I had sown all my seeds, I labelled them and popped them under the shop lights on the rack of my new shelf.
I tried to adjust the lights to hang about 1 inch above the tray. I will raise it as the seedlings grow to keep that one inch gap.
Next I sprayed the top of the cells with filtered water and then watered from the bottom by pouring about half an inch of water in the tray under the pots or cells. This allows them to water from the bottom. I check the seed trays morning and night and make sure they always stay moist but not wet. If some of the water is not soaked up by the pot or cell within an hour of watering, I will tip the excess water off.
The Waiting Game
Sowing seeds is a time consuming job. With many life interruptions it took me two days, but even so, when I had filled all the racks, it just didn’t seem like quite enough! But I will have to be patient. I am out of room on my shelving so I will have to wait until these have grown a bit before I can start the next lot.
So now the seeds are all tucked into their little seed tray beds sleeping soundly under the warm lights until they are ready to sprout and wake. It is the time of excited anticipation – of watching, watching and waiting. Can’t wait to see that first little green shoot!
You may also like to read this article on Starting a Garden from Scratch
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