Series: Starting seeds

The tools and methods I use to start seeds indoors, to grow seedlings for transplant.

Editing onions, counting peppers

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Counting pepper seedlings

The more things change, the more they stay the same, right? That’s how it seems, in a soothingly familiar way, as seed starting 2010 really gets in gear at this new farm location. A little over two weeks since we set up the seedling room, and the fairly intricate task of managing dozens of crops and varieties and thousands of seedlings is on!

It can be a little complicated, keeping track of all the details, but it’s also…simple. Kendall, trying her hand at tiny farming-style veggie production for the first time, shows no fear with the sharp, little snips, as she learns about thinning onions (above). We’re multiplanting this set of onions, aiming for four per plug sheet cell. Since I used seed from last year—a common rule is that you should get allium (onion family) seed fresh each year to ensure good germination, but why waste?!—we went a little generous in the seeding. Germination was great, and now we need to remove the extras.

Next, Kendall’s on to another kinda critical seed-starting task: taking inventory of what exactly we’ve got going. That means a lot of counting and note-taking, and making sure the markers in the trays don’t get pulled out. Below, she tallies some of the 20 or so varieties of sweet and hot peppers that’re on for this season. For the new girl, it’s business as usual!

Seeding as we go…

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It’s spring! The ground is clear, hasn’t snowed in a while, but it’s still cold, and the tiny farming action remains mainly indoors. We’re steadily filling up the racks (here, Lynn populates a plug sheet with Red Russian kale; under the lights, parsley and onion). I’m spreading things out a lot more than usual, instead of starting a whole lot on one day. We’ll see what difference a few days or a couple of weeks make to the various veg… It likely won’t be much, but some interesting things could happen if we get really drastic week-to-week weather changes around transplant time, like we did last year.  An experiment!

Early spring rounds

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Seeding plugsheets

A gray and gloomy, windy day…but WARM. Well, fairly above freezing for the most part, and with a little rain, yesterday’s speeded-up melting continued. But we’re still a ways off from actually doing any work in the field. So, another pretty laid-back day. Lynn came by for her weekly installment of tiny farming. Out in the greenhouse, moving tables around and some hand-watering (those barrels of snow water are coming in handy!). In the Milkhouse, more seed starting: 400 more tomatoes, and a tray of leeks (a little late for this batch, but still better than direct-seeding). For her very first time starting seedlings, Lynn seeded 19 varieties into a 200-cell plug tray (10 each, 20 of one). Clearly, I trust her…accuracy. Working in the tiny cells, changing seed every row, and keeping track of names requires a bit of concentration. A little wandering attention, and who knows what tomatoes would be growing where… Living on the edge! :)

Plug sheet action

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Plastic cling wrap is everywhere. I tried it out last year as a replacement for clear tray covers and it seems to work fine. The method so far: fill the plug sheets with seedling mix, place tray in water so mix is soaked from the bottom up, drop in 2-3 seeds per cell, cover lightly with more mix, soak surface with spray, apply plastic wrap (it sticks nicely to the wet edges of the plug sheet), fill out label marker with variety/date and plunge through plastic (those labels are all that stand between you and variety chaos!), then it’s off to the racks. Now, the trays don’t have to be watered for a week, the mix retains more heat, and you can check moisture by looking at the condensation on the plastic. At first, I wondered about adequate air circulation and whether the fairly closed conditions would encourage algae, but the seedlings emerge on time with no unusual algae problems. As soon as the first couple of seedlings appear, it’s off with the plastic. I re-use the plastic as well, over the 4-5 weeks of seed starting, and the bit of waste in the end, well, I think it’s moderation in everything that counts. (In the top right of the pic, the Vittoria eggplant is tenting its cover, having pushed up vigorously in just six or seven hours overnight. It’s a feisty one!)

Seedling treatment

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The fan is oscillating and the grow racks are slowly filling up. Parsley—curly and flat-leaf—are underway, and there’s more lettuce and some herbs…

Fanning the seedlings is particularly satisfying because it does a lot for such a simple thing. I forget where I heard about it, probably from a book, and I’ve been doing it since Year 1 or 2.

The idea is that plants develop differently when they have to deal with wind, or rain, or otherwise being pushed about. Seedlings raised indoors lead an extremely sheltered life; providing a bit of a breeze toughens them up, and this sort of mechanical stimulation (brushing is another approach) also encourages stockier growth instead of stretching.

It makes sense to me—seedlings definitely wouldn’t be so coddled growing out in the field! There’s even a term for this: thigmomorphogenesis! While hunting down the word, I found an interesting article about mechanical stimulation of seedlings as well (and here’s another).

I don’t follow a particular schedule, just give ’em at least an hour or two a day, sometimes more, turn the fan on and move it around every once in a while (I also make sure the seedlings are properly watered, since wind is great for drying out plants).

All in all, it’s easy, sounds good, hasn’t hurt! The fanning also dries the soil surface, which helps prevent damping-off, so you can’t lose!


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