Seed-starting hacks

February is when Pennsylvania gardeners get busy starting their first seeds inside for young, home-grown, cool-season transplants that will be ready to plant out as soon as conditions allow.

Onions, leeks, cabbage, broccoli, and lettuce are among the first veggies that should be started this month so they’ll be ready for late-March to early-April planting.

Pansies, violas, and snapdragons are three flowers that also can be planted out weeks before frost is done, which is late April in an average Harrisburg-area spring (and mid-May if you’re going by our all-time-latest spring frost).

March is the time to start plants indoors from seed for summer crops such as tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, basil, and most annual flowers.

Petra Page-Mann, co-owner of the New York-based Fruition Seeds, lists four keys to getting your seeds to sprout:

1.) Don’t sow too deeply. Most seeds should be sown only about twice their depth, which is shallower than a lot of gardeners think, Page-Mann says. Planting deeper slows or even prevents germination.

Be aware that some varieties need light to germinate and so should be pressed into the soil surface – not buried at all. These include ageratum, impatiens, petunias, browallia, snapdragons, coleus, and nicotiana.

Seed packets tell you how deeply to plant each variety.

2.) Good seed-to-soil contact. After sowing your seeds, tamp them down so the soil moisture can break the seed coat and start root growth.

“Also, as the first root emerges, it will be sure to find both water and nutrients rather than an air pocket to slow growth,” Page-Mann says.

3.) The right temperature. Some seeds will germinate in a wide range of temperatures, but Page-Mann says a soil temperature between 70 and 80 degrees is ideal for most seeds with 77 degrees being the “sweet spot.”

“The farther away from their optimum soil temperature, the longer it will take your seeds to germinate,” she says.

Since most homes are kept cooler than those ideals in winter, Page-Mann says a heat mat is a valuable aid for getting seeds to sprout.

Don’t have a heat mat? Second best is setting your seed pots or trays on top of an appliance that produces some warmth (i.e. a refrigerator) or in a warm pocket of the house.

4.) Consistent dampness. “Seeds need water to soften their seed coat and swell, so it’s crucial to never let your seeds dry out as they germinate,” Page-Mann says.

She recommends “bottom-watering” so the seed-starting medium soaks up enough to stay consistently damp. Don’t add so much, though, that water sits underneath the pots/trays and causes the medium to become soggy.

Supplemental lighting keeps young seedlings from getting “leggy.”

From seedlings to transplants…

What then once you get the seeds to sprout into seedlings?

The most common downfall is lack of light, which causes seedlings to quickly become “leggy” as they stretch for the limited indoor light. Even next to a sunny, south-facing window is usually not bright enough.

You’ll have much better success using supplemental lights. Joe Lamp’l, a.k.a. “Joe Gardener” of PBS’s “Growing a Greener World,” offers six tips on that, based on some elaborate first-hand testing he did in his Atlanta-area basement.

1.) Ordinary workshop fluorescent light tubes (known as T12s) work well if you’re just growing seedlings for four to six weeks. One cool-light tube and one warm one in each unit improves the light spectrum. (Higher-efficiency T5 fluorescent tubes and LED grow lights are markedly brighter but better for use over bigger, more mature plants.)

2.) Basic workshop fluorescent tubes work best when the lights are kept very close above the seedlings, ideally one inch.

The height for LEDs varies with their intensity and heat output. Joe says to watch how plants respond and then move the lights up or down accordingly.

Ratchet pulleys are better for regulating height than hanging lights from chains with S hooks, Joe says.

3.) Running the lights 16 hours on and eight hours off is ideal.

Joe found that letting them on longer – up to and including all the time – is counter-productive and more light than the plants need.

4.) Don’t start seeds too early and have them grow too long inside. Joe says most plants are ready for the outdoors after just four to six weeks under lights.

5.) As with Page-Mann’s bottom-watering advice for sprouting seeds, Joe recommends bottom-watering seedling trays and letting the roots soak up water rather than dousing the tender seedlings with watering cans from above.

Limit the water to what the seedling mix soaks up in about 15 minutes. Dump any excess water after the surface of the seedling mix becomes wet.

6.) Germination mats and plastic domes are fine for germinating seeds, Joe says, but once plants are up and growing, stop using them.

Excess heat and humidity can lead to overly tender growth and/or a disease called damping off that causes seedlings to keel over at the base. Joe recommends running a small fan on low across the seedlings to discourage that.

• Read more of Joe Gardener’s seedling-growing tips
• Read George’s “Seed-Starting 101″ column

Recycled margarine tubs can be used for starting seeds.

Money-saving seed pots

You don’t need new and/or expensive pots and trays for your seed-starting activities.

So long as the container is clean, is able to hold soil, and has holes for drainage in the bottom, all sorts of recycled items can be used.

One of the best vessels for starting seeds is used margarine or butter tubs. Just clean them, poke or drill several small drainage holes in the bottom (quarter-inch holes are good), and fill with vermiculite or other light-weight, seed-starting medium.

Cut-off milk jugs, plastic berry and cherry-tomato tubs, ice-cream tubs, and plastic or foam takeout-food containers also work well.

For growing individual seedlings (whether you start them directly in small pots or transplant them from the aforementioned seed-starting containers), you likely have all sorts of possibilities laying around the house.

Among them: yogurt cups, cut-in-half juice boxes and plastic water bottles, used foam or paper drinking cups, K-sized coffee-making cups, Chinese-food takeout containers, egg cartons, cardboard toilet-paper and paper-towel tubes, cut-in-half shells of avocados and citrus fruits, soup cans, and cut-off shampoo, conditioner, mouthwash, and lotion bottles.

Many gardeners also like to reuse cell packs they’ve saved from past purchases of greenhouse-grown transplants.

These work fine – just clean them and disinfect them by soaking in a 10-percent bleach solution for 10 or 15 minutes to kill any possibly lurking plant diseases.

Some gardeners also make their own seedling pots by wrapping two- to four-sheet strips of newsprint around a metal can and tucking down one end into the open end of the can. These can be planted whole (they biodegrade). The trick is keeping them from disintegrating too soon.

For seedling trays (that hold seed pots), store-bought plastic trays can be re-used year after year if cleaned and disinfected. If they develop small holes, cut sheets of plastic to use as inserts to extend their life.

Old cake, baking, and basting pans and large plastic food-storage containers also can be used once they’ve outlived their kitchen usefulness.

Winter is a good time to clean and sharpen the gardening tools.

Tool time

Although it may not seem like it now, it’ll be time to get outside and dig, prune, and mow again before you know it.

Are your tools ready?

February is a good month to clean and sharpen the yard tools as well as service the power tools so you’ll be ready to hit the ground running come spring.

Sharp tools work so much better. Use a bench grinder and/or file to carve sharp edges into your shovels, edging tools, pruners, loppers, garden knives, and even hand trowels.

If nothing else, at least clean off the dirt and make sure everything is in good repair.

If not, this is also a good time to buy replacement parts and/or buy new tools before the garden centers get crowded with plant-buyers.

Lawn-mower blades in particular should be sharpened about every 25 hours of cutting time. Dull blades make rougher cuts that open grass blades to more drying and disease than the crisp cuts that sharp mower blades make.

Now is also a good time to change oil, clean/replace spark plugs, and get any power equipment such as edgers, weed-whackers, chipper-shredders, and mowers ready for 2022 duty.

While you’re at it, take an inventory of gardening supplies you regularly use (fertilizers, bug sprays, potting mix, etc.) and stock up on those so you can maximize good-weather time in the garden instead of shopping.

• More when-to-do-what tips: George’s “Pennsylvania Month-by-Month Gardening” book

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Originally Appeared Here