Seed-Starting Tips

by Marie Hofer, HGTV.com

If you want to save money, expand your gardening palette and extend your growing season, there's no better way than to start with seeds. And who better to know the ins and outs of starting seeds than Marion Owen, who gardens in Kodiak, Alaska. We asked Owen, co-author of Chicken Soup for the Gardener's Soul, to share her seed-starting tips:

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Your seedlings need more light than you might think. A fluorescent light positioned over the seedlings is superior to light from a window.
  • Insist on a good-quality seed-starting mix. Seed-starting mix has a finer texture than normal potting soil. The mix should be sterile and fluffy, hold moisture well yet breathe.

  • Let there be light. Lack of adequate light results in thin, leggy seedlings. "That's probably the No. 1 reason why people become discouraged over starting their own seeds," Owen says. The best device is a standard fluorescent shop light, positioned four inches above the foliage and timed to be on 14 to 16 hours a day. If you must use a windowsill, supplement with reflectors and rotate plants daily.

  • Monitor water. Keep the starter mix continuously moist, but never dry and never sopping wet. "If seedlings dry out, they will perk back up when you water them, but they'll never be quite the same again," Owen says. To tell if the medium is moist enough, use the bread test. "The soil surface needs to feel as moist as a slice of fresh bread." As the seedlings mature, start watering them from the bottom to encourage the roots to reach for moisture.

  • Give them juice. After the second set of leaves appears, begin lightly fertilizing. Owen uses a weak solution of a special fertilizer blend that includes fish meal and kelp, applied as a foliar spray or as a bottom feeding at every other watering. "The important thing is to make it weak. Remember, you wouldn't feed a two-month-old baby a steak."

  • Pet your plants. Run your hands across the tops of the seedlings, says Owen. "It strengthens the stems, gets them used to movement, prepares them for outdoor breezes."

    Tools that Owen wouldn't do without:

    • No. 2 Pencil. For extremely fine seeds, Owen dips the tip of a pencil into moist soil, touches the damp tip onto a few seeds, then twirls the pencil tip in the soil, where the seeds obligingly fall.

    • Soil cuber. Pack soil mix into the cuber's cells, and out come compressed soil pellets, each ready for a seed. When each seedling has developed its second set of leaves, move the pellet into its own growing pot. The cuber thus saves the intermediate step of separating fragile seedlings that have been started in a traditional flat. "It punches out 20 at a time," says Owen. "My goal is to reduce transplant shock, so any time I can avoid having to untangle plant roots I do it."

    • Fan. Good ventilation helps prevent damping off and other fungal diseases prone to attack seedlings. "Plus," says Owen, "ventilation helps them breathe by circulating carbon dioxide and oxygen. When there's still air in greenhouses, plant growth slows."
    • Resources
    Fertilizer
    PlanTea
    P.O. Box 1980
    Kodiak, Alaska 99615-1980
    Phone: 907-486-2500 (outside the U.S. and Canada)
    Toll Free Phone: 800-253-6331 (U.S. and Canada only)
    Website: www.plantea.com/plantea-organic-fertilizer.htm

    Soil Cuber
    PlanTea
    P.O. Box 1980
    Kodiak, Alaska 99615-1980
    Phone: 907-486-2500 (outside the U.S. and Canada)
    Toll Free Phone: 800-253-6331 (U.S. and Canada)
    Website: www.plantea.com/question.htm#tools