Never miss a recipe!
Enter your email address to subscribe to Harvest to Table free via email:
almanac apples artichoke arugula asparagus basil beans beets best bet varieties blueberries bok choy books broccoli brussels sprouts cabbage carrots cauliflower celery chard cherries chilies Chinese cabbage Chinese leaves compost cooking cool-season vegetables corn cucumbers dates delicious bite delicious bites dried beans eggplant farmers market fennel fresh this week garbanzo bean gardening tips garlic grapefruit grapes herbs horseradish hot peppers how to grow in the garden kale kitchen garden kitchen garden almanac kohlrabi leeks legumes lemon lettuce mandarin orange melons mint mushrooms mustard greens nectarines okra olives onions oranges parsnips peaches pears peas peppers pests and diseases pests diseases problems potatoes pumpkin radish recipes rutabaga salsify seed starting shallots soil Southern Hemisphere spinach spring onions squash strawberry summer squash sun-dried tomato sunchokes sweet corn sweet pepper sweet potato tangerine tomato turnip turnip greens vegetable garden watermelons winter squash zucchini
Categories
- Around Here
- Berries
- Best Bet Varieties
- Bulb Vegetables
- Cereals & Grains
- Citrus Fruits
- Companion Planting
- Container Gardening
- Cooking
- Delicious Bite
- Dried & Candied Fruit, Rhubarb
- Dry Gardening
- Flower Vegetables
- Food For Thought
- Fresh This Week
- Fruit Vegetables
- Fruits
- Gardening Tips
- Harvest and Storage
- Herbs, Spices & Condiments
- How to Grow
- In The Garden
- Indoor Gardening
- Kitchen Garden Almanac
- Leaf Vegetables
- Legumes
- Making A Kitchen Garden
- Melons
- Mushrooms
- Nuts & Seeds
- Pests Diseases Problems
- Polls
- Pome Fleshy Fruits
- Quick Crops
- Recipes
- Root Vegetables
- Season Extension
- Seed Starting
- Southern Hemisphere
- Stalk Vegetables
- Stone Fleshy Fruits
- Storing Vegetables and Fruits
- Tropical Fruits
- Tuber Vegetables
- Vegetables
Measurement Converter
Hardiness Zone Finder
Find your zone by entering your zip code
Favorite Food and Garden Blogs
American Community Gardening Association- Center for Ecoliteracy
- Common Ground Garden Los Angeles
- Compost Guide
- Culinate
- Eat Local Challenge
- Eat Well Guide
- Edible Communities
- The Edible Schoolyard
- The Ethicurean
- Food Routes
- The Garden Lady
- Gardeners Anonymous
- In My Kitchen Garden
- Local Harvest
- Locavores
- Mighty Foods
- Mother Earth's Garden
- National Gardening Association
- Reading Dirt
- Seafood Watch
- Seeds of Change
- Shirls Gardenwatch
- Simply Recipes
- Slow Food USA
- Sonoma County Master Gardeners
- Sustainable Table
- This Garden Is Illegal
- Thoughts on the Table
- Veggie Gardening Tips
- What to Eat
Harvest to Table
A practical guide to food in the garden and market
Simple Seed Starting
Filed under: Seed Starting, Tagged as: seed starting
Getting seeds started indoors can be as simple as re-purposing pressed-paper egg cartons. Egg carton cups are just the right size for starting seeds and growing seedlings on to size. Half egg shells and newspaper cones set in egg carton compartments will work just as well.
Poke a hole in the bottom of each egg compartment (or egg shell or newspaper cone) and fill with moistened sterile seed starting mix. Use the egg carton lid as a tray beneath the compartments.
Sow two or three seeds in each compartment and just cover them with seed starting mix; the rule of thumb is to cover seeds to a depth of three times their diameter.
Use a clear plastic bag as your seed-starting greenhouse. Place the egg carton in the plastic bag (don't tie the bag--germinating seeds need fresh air) and set it in a warm, light place--on a kitchen countertop or under fluorescent lights. A consistent temperature of about 70 to 75°F is best to ensure quick sprouting. Keep the starting mix just moist until seeds germinate; remove the plastic bag if mold should start to grow.
When the seeds germinate (you'll see green shoots), take the carton from the plastic bag and set it in a light but not too bright windowsill. (Direct sunlight through window glass may burn young seedlings.)
Let the seedlings grow two weeks--enough time to form true leaves--then use a small scissors to snip away the smaller and weakest of the seedlings at soil level. Leave the strongest seedling to thrive. (Avoid pulling seedlings from their starting compartments so as not to disturb young roots.)
Grow seedlings on for another two weeks being sure to keep the soil just moist--do not let seed-starting mix dry out. Use a liquid organic fertilizer at quarter strength when you water new seedlings. When more than two sets of leaves have emerged, give the seedlings up to one-third strength liquid fertilizer.
Four to six weeks after germination, indoor started seedlings will be ready for potting up or transplanting out in the garden. Before seedlings go into the garden they should be hardened off--placed in a sheltered outdoor place for a few hours each day and allowed to acclimatize to outdoor conditions, a process that can take up to two weeks depending upon the weather.
Once seedlings are hardened off, the seed-starting egg cartons, egg shells, or paper cones can be gently crushed or cut apart and then transplanted whole into the garden without disturbing the seedlings' roots. Egg cartons, egg shells, and newspaper cones will decompose quickly once set in the ground. Most seedlings should be planted no deeper than they were in the seed-starting container.
Starting seeds indoors can give you a four to six-weed week head start over seeds sown directly in the garden.
Related Articles:
Spring Outdoor Seed-Starting Schedule
Starting Vegetable Seeds Indoors and Out
Tips on Starting Seeds Each Month: Visit the Seed Starting Archive
Never Miss a New Post subscribe to Harvest to Table by entering your email:
Harvest to Table's New Encyclopedia:
The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide
A practical vegetable and herb garden encyclopedia
From the soil to the plate, The Kitchen Garden Grower's Guide is exceptionally penned and easy to follow. It provides answers to basic and in-depth growing questions. It includes how to plant, how to grow and care for crops, how to harvest, how to store and how to prepare vegetables and herbs. From asparagus and beet greens to Belgian endive and strawberries, this book helps readers organize a small garden close to the kitchen that offers their favorite, fresh-picked-at-the-peak-of-ripeness small crop-and the template on how to orchestrate the effort.
Send This Entry To A Friend
Link to this page
Bookmark this page using the following link:
http://www.harvestwizard.com/2010/01/simple_seed_starting.html
Do you have a website?
You can place a link to this page by copying and pasting the code below.
<a href="http://www.harvestwizard.com/2010/01/simple_seed_starting.html">Simple Seed Starting</a>
Never Miss a Garden Tip!
Just enter your email address and you will subscribe to "Harvest To Table" Web site updates via email for free. Make sure you confirm your subscription from the confirmation message you'll receive in your mailbox right away.
Most Popular
Recent Posts
Recent Comments
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Lima Beans
- AnnM on How to Grow Lima Beans
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Lima Beans
- anna on How to Grow Lima Beans
- alex linssey markinmy on How to Grow Lima Beans
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Lima Beans
- tine on How to Grow Lima Beans
- Anonymous on How to Grow Lima Beans
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Potatoes
- amy on How to Grow Potatoes
- Durgan on How to Grow Potatoes
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Potatoes
- Anonymous on How to Grow Potatoes
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Potatoes
- katrina on How to Grow Potatoes
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- charlie b on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- james on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- james on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Mary Bender on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- hugh means on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- leongks on Vegetable Disease Problem Solver
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Celery
- Sandi on How to Grow Celery
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Celery
- Flo on How to Grow Celery
- Stephen Albert on Melon Growing Problems: Troubleshooting
- John on Melon Growing Problems: Troubleshooting
- Stephen Albert on Beans: Harvest and Storage
- Holly on Beans: Harvest and Storage
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- mutuelle on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Sue Parker on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Corinne Whitfield on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- mary on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- matt on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- keith on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Carman on Spring Onions, Green Onions and Scallions
- Stephen Albert on Chinese Vegetables: Warm-Season Varieties
- Trent on Chinese Vegetables: Warm-Season Varieties
- Toleomas on Chinese Vegetables: Warm-Season Varieties
- Stephen Albert on How to Grow Radish
- Kathy on How to Grow Radish
- Stephen Albert on Growing Mint
- Chris and Growing Mint on Growing Mint
Subscribe by RSS
Your site is very helpful for us as backyard vegetable gardener. Hope to see more inputs/posts in the coming days. Thank you and more power, God bless.
Oden