Seedlings growing under lights

I started some seeds today in my “plant work room” and I thought you might be interested.  I start seeds in regular plastic nursery trays that I get from a local greenhouse – and that I save from store-bought plants.  I do recycle my plant containers from year to year -  If you reuse containers like this you really should wash them thoroughly in a weak bleach solution and dry them in the sun before storing them away for reuse.  Or so I’ve heard – I might try that some day.

just planted flat

This year I’m planting in commercial soil mix, because I just don’t have any compost that is ready right now to make into home made potting soil.  Anyway, fill your containers with soil and plant your seeds at the  recommended depth.  Most of what I planted today is in the cabbage family, and needs to be about 1/2 inch deep.  I just use a finger to poke holes about that deep, drop 2-3 seeds into each one and then sprinkle with more soil to cover.  I’m using pretty small divisions – 72 plants per tray – because I plan to plant out these cold season plants under row covers or in the greenhouse as soon as they are big enough to handle.  If I thought that I would have to hold them for a while I would probably start them in larger divisions to begin with.

BTW, I am also test germinating some seeds that I saved last year – by planting 10 seeds per container to see how many come up.  Assuming that some of them germinate I can just multiply the number of seedlings by 10 to get the success rate as a percentage.  Other than using 10 seeds per container they are done exactly the same way as everything else.

Using a spray bottle to water the planted trays gives good control.

I’ve found that the least messy way for me to water trays is by misting with a spray bottle – every other method that I’ve used results in muddy water running everywhere and only a little soaking in.  Check soil moisture every day until you’re sure that it has stabilized where you want it – moist, but not dripping wet.

Note that you need to label your trays – I use recycled pieces of plastic mini blinds.

A plastic seed starting chamber like this is very handy, but not absolutely required. You will have to remove it soon after your plants emerge, but until then it helps to keep the soil evenly moist and the air warm and humid. If you don't have one of these just lay a sheet of plastic right on top until you see plants starting to emerge.

Then cover with one of these plastic domes if you have one.  If you don’t have one of these you can simply drape a piece of saran wrap over the tray, but if you do that you will have to remove it as soon as you see plants emerging from the soil.  The cover holds the moisture in so that you shouldn’t have to water again until it’s removed.

My simple grow light setup uses regular 4' shop lights and bulbs - not expensive "grow" lights.

I use plain old 40 watt flourescent shop lights to start my plants indoors and it works great.  As you can see the fixtures are just sitting on top of props that I have made out of one by six scraps, but you can use whatever you have.  You want the lights to be as close to the plant trays as is practical or your plants will grow tall and leggy.   Now that compact florescent lights are widely available you could also use those in any lamp fixture that you have.  You can easily get CFLs which are equivalent to  a 100 watt incandescent light  – should be great for a smaller operation.

Last year I built a very simple bottom heat system which has made a tremendous improvement in my success rate for starting all kinds of seeds.   If you don’t have bottom heat, then try to keep the soil as warm as possible 24 hours a day.  On top of a refrigerator or an upright freezer is a good place or on a shelf right over your water heater or a heat appliance.  The regular average room temperature of your house is probably not warm enough for best results.  The lights also won’t really work to keep the soil warm because they won’t be on 24 hours a day.  If you look at this planting soil temperature chart you will see that most plants want the soil temp to be around 80 degrees Fahrenheit for best germination.  If at all possible use some form of bottom heat.

A simple analog light timer is all y0u need for starting your own plants, but you need one that is big enough to handle the load of all of the lights that you are going to plug into it.

For good results you must have a timer to control your lights.  Erratic lighting or 24 hour day lengths will be bad for many plants.  Be sure that you use a timer which is rated high enough for the total wattage of lights that you will be using.   Set the on period to correspond with or extend the  actual  daylight hours – in other words don’t try to have your plants day and night be opposite of the real day and night otherwise ambient light will interrupt their sleep just like it would yours.  I set mine to go on at sunrise and off at about 8 PM.  I currently have the day length set for about 13 1/2 hours, but when I start planting tomatoes and peppers in a few weeks I will increase that to about 16 hours of light per day.

Once I start this process every winter I love to get out in the plant room to visit and check on my plants.  The warm moist air and the smell of clean soil and growing things along with the sun light coming through the windows really takes the edge off of winter for me.  That and a cup of coffee is a great way to start the day.   Round up some seeds and soil, and see if it doesn’t lift your spirits as well.

My humble plant work room. Really just a small well insulated room on the side of my garage with 4 windows, and a concrete floor that I don't have to worry about getting dirty. The light bench is sitting on top of 5 steel barrels full of water for thermal mass which help to moderate the temperature. You can see the rope light that powers my bottom heat there at the lower right. On the far end of the bench I have just enough counter space to pot things up. I love it.

Pay attention.  This may be the most valuable tidbit of gardening wisdom anyone ever hands you. Of course it also might not be.

When to plant – every seed packet you pick up has a little map on the back with 4 or 5 colored zones and planting dates for each zone.  Or they have cryptic advice like “whenever soil can be worked”, “after soil has thoroughly warmed”, or “after all danger of frost.”    Forget all that.  Plant when the soil is the right temperature.  Period.   Depending upon how sheltered your garden is, or if it has shade in the morning or afternoon – or if it is in a greenhouse or cold frame – those dates are just about meaningless.  But, the soil temperature will almost never lead you astray because the ground temperature changes slowly – it is slow to warm up in the spring, and slow to cool off in the fall.  Not wildly swinging with every warm or cold front.

As a general rule seeds that can germinate at a lower temperature are also more resistant to rot.

If you study this table you will begin to understand why those melons never came up – too cool/wet and they rot, too warm – they just never germinate.  You will also understand what “as soon as soil can be worked” means – a lot of things can be planted in 41 degree soil (or colder) and will just take a long time to come up unless the soil warms first like in the spring time – in which case they spring up quicker.  You can also understand this – if it will germinate in very cold soil then the plant will probably tolerate some cold spring (or even winter) weather.  So – onions, lettuce, spinach, and those which will germinate at 32 degrees can be planted any time after the weather cools down in the fall and they will basically come up when the time is right and be fine – especially if they are sheltered in a cold frame.

If you are starting seeds indoors you can see why it’s so hard to get tomatoes to come up in that sunny (but cold at night) window – those little plugs of soil do cool off quickly unlike the soil in your garden.  Those tomatoes, peppers and other warm season tropical plants will get off to a galloping start if you can consistently keep them a bit warmer – like with home made bottom heat made from rope lights.

On the other end of the chart – when it is too hot for the seeds to germinate, most plants start to stress or die from heat, especially if they aren’t kept watered.  So those cool season crops need to be planted when it is cold so that they can make a crop before it gets too hot.  Warm season crops will do great if you plant them when the soil is just barely (or almost) warm enough, and then cover them with a fabric or plastic row cover or cold frame.  Cucumbers really will come up in 3 days if you do this.

BTW, one of those digital kitchen thermometers works great for checking soil temp.   If you don’t already have a cold frame then cut the bottom off of a 2 liter coke bottle and leave it in the garden pushed into the ground like you were covering a plant with it – check the temp under that in a day or two, and you will want to get a cold frame.  Of course you can also cover your seeds with the bottom of a 2 liter bottle (or plastic milk jug) until they come up.

If you take this one thing seriously and plant your garden as early as possible, but when the soil is warm enough you’re gardening prowess will leap forward by the equivalent of 20 years of experience.  I sure wish someone had handed this to me 20 years ago!

Need planting information for something that isn’t on the chart?  Search using this customized Google search engine. Try searching for – zucchini soil temperature – for example.

Gardening Search Engine – all results are from top US Agricultural Universities.

Doesn't that look delicious? Forcing rhubarb results in an earlier, tastier, more tender crop. The container used to force this rhubarb probably should have been taller - note that the tops are curled over. Sure is a pretty color though.

Rhubarb is a perenial plant which grows back from the root crowns every spring.  The large leaves contain high levels of oxalic acid and are poisonous, but the celery like stems are wonderfully tart and tangy.  Children like to eat them fresh right out of the garden, but nearly everyone likes it used as a fruit in sweet deserts – pies, crumbles, or just stewed with sugar.  My Mom (a marvelous cook of course – thanks Mom!) used to make it into a pie with strawberries.  My mouth is watering just thinking about it.  Don’t worry too much about those poisonous leaves – they apparently taste so nasty that there is not much danger of anyone eating them anyway.

Here in TN I can barely grow rhubarb – although last year was so cool and rainy that it did pretty well.  It really does much better farther north where the weather is normally cooler and wetter.  When I was a kid we lived in Indiana for a few years, and the back yard of the old house we lived in had a marvelous big bed of rhubarb that just took care of itself.

In good conditions rhubarb will pretty much take care of itself. They do like rich soil with lots of organic material and high fertility, and even moisture though.

Forcing rhubarb as in the first picture above is something that I had never heard of until recently, and I’ve never tried it yet – but I will.  Apparently forcing rhubarb is a widespread practice in England – I ran across it on a UK gardening blog that I subscribe to.  I’m afraid that the English are much more sophisticated gardeners on average than most Americans are – they seem to use many techniques that we don’t.  We should try to do better I suppose.

Anyway, from what I can glean forcing rhubarb is very simple to accomplish – as soon as growth is seen  (maybe even before)  cover the crown of a well established plant with a large, rather tall container such as a bucket or trash can.  Optionally insulate around the “forcer” with straw or some other mulch to warm the micro-climate and encourage growth.  In about 8 weeks you should have an early crop of tender juicy tangy rhubarb.

• Don’t try to do this until you have a well established healthy plant to work with – certainly not the first year!
• Don’t force the same plant two years in a row as the process stresses the plant by putting most of the energy into growing the forced stems instead of keeping the rest of the plant strong.

There are good reasons to plant turnips even if they aren't on your list of vavorite vegies.

Turnips will almost never be the answer to the question of  “What is your favorite vegetable?” so maybe the title of this article should be “Cover Crop Plantin’ Time in the Mid South”  but it just doesn’t have the same alliteration thing going on.  BTW, it’s the last week of August, and a few harbingers of fall are already apparent – goldenrod in bloom for example.

Anyway, your summer garden is looking disgraceful (you know it is) and it’s high time to put all of those disease and weed ridden plants out of their misery before you get a visit from the homeowners association.  Hopefully you are planning to grow a fall garden, but even so  some amount of ground  is probably going to be vacant once you tidy up – which is where cover crops come in.  Any good cover crop will suppress weeds, prevent erosion, improve the fertility / organic content of your soil, and in some cases even put food on your table.  One of the main things that cover crops do is to absorb soil nutrients into their tissues as they grow so that they don’t leach away during the rainy winter.  But (to me) the main reason to plant cover crops is that they save work, because all of those advantages are gained with no more effort than it takes to sprinkle a few seeds on the newly bared ground.

The most popular fall / winter cover crops in my area are: Turnips, Crimson Clover, and Annual Rye.  They are area favs for good reasons, and they all have their unique advantages.  Rye probably does the best job of suppressing weeds, and adds lots of organic matter to the soil when you work it in early next spring.  Crimson clover adds nitrogen in addition to organic matter.  Turnips main claim to fame is the fact that they also yield food – all winter long in some cases.  Ask around (at a farmers co-op for example) to find out what works best in your area.

Whichever cover crop you choose to sow buy your seed by the pound (at a farmers co-op or or Real Garden Center) unless your garden is awfully small a little paper packet isn’t going to be enough seed.  Anyway, a pound of turnip seed should only cost 3 dollars or so, will last just about forever in the freezer, and contains enough seed to plant the entire state of Rhode Island – it’s one of those things that you should just keep on hand.  If you keep them in an empty shaker bottle such as spices comes in it will be very convenient to just sprinkle about – a good tip for all kinds of salad green seeds.

The other thing you should do with any of these crops is to completely ignore the planting dirrections.  One of those little packets will tell you that you need to plant turnips 1/2″ deep in loose fertile  soil which has been enriched with lots of organic mater – which is true if you are hoping to win a ribbon at the fair, but for the purpose of a cover crop just sow your seed thickly (thin later with a hoe if you want to harvest roots)  on top of the ground after you have pulled the old plants and weeds.  You do need to use a rake or cultivating fork to break up any crust that you might have, and you will probably want to rake it out just to be neat – but that’s all.  The main thing is to throw those seeds down and everything else will take care of itself.  If you water one time after sowing the seeds you will probably see sprouts in 3-4 days.

But, you say “I’m planning on mulching/tilling/fertilizing/planting something else long before those cover crops will be done.”  Don’t worry about it – when the weather cools off and  you get ready to do any of those things just do it  – until then your cover crop will be improving your garden for you, and if you don’t get around to those things until next year it will look like you planned it that way.

This is one of the best times of the year to work in your garden – get out there!

Start right now and you can grow excellent fall vegetables in your garden while those around you grow little more than weeds.

August is here and it’s time to get busy planting your fall vegetable garden.  While your neighbor’s gardens start to look sad with weeds and failing summer crops yours can continue to be productive for weeks, months or even non stop from now on.

It’s hot now, but soon the weather will start to moderate, the bugs will start to thin out, and soil moisture will increase and garden tasks will become much more pleasant, but if you don’t act soon it will be too late for many crops.

In my area of zone 6 it’s still most likely 10 – 12 weeks until we start getting frost.  More than enough time for another planting of summer squash, green beans, cucumbers or (theoretically) even another round of tomatoes if you can procure plants that are ready to go.

Most years rain is the big issue for late plantings of summer veggies, but so far this year the only rain problem in my garden has been too much of it.  So I have my fingers crossed that I won’t have to water very often, but if you do have to water it’s far better to install soaker hoses or drip irrigation lines before planting if you can at all.  However don’t let that concern keep you from planting – sooner the better.

When the leaves are falling your fall garden will be growing and feeding your family delicious cool season vegetables.

Aside from one more round of summer vegetables the real reward of growing a fall garden will be all of the cool season plants that do well as the nights begin to cool.  All of the brassicas are great in the fall garden – cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, collards, Brussels sprouts, etc.  Here in the south it isn’t too late to start these from seed, but it also isn’t too soon to set out plants if you can get them – check your local farmers market, and online classifieds as well as nurseries, and garden centers.

Keep in mind that the cabbage family does best in cool weather, but they are not cold hardy.  Many of them will survive or even improve from a light frost, but you have to harvest them before a hard frost or freeze.  In our area the first few frosts are usually far between and the season can easily be extended by several weeks if you are prepared to cover tender plants for the first few frosts.

The first step in moving forward with this project is to yank out all of those failing plants that are just taking up space, and looking sad.  Don’t hang onto failing vines just because they might produce another squash or two.  Toss those things on the compost heap – unless they are diseased or infested in which case you should probably burn them as much as I hate to say it.

Once you free up some space you need to consult a calendar to decide what your planting options are.  Calculate the time left until your likely first frost date.

If you have 10 or more weeks left of reliably temperate weather you can still direct sow green beans, squash and cucumbers – but you need to do it immediately if not sooner.  You also still have time to plant cabbage and other brassicas from seed, but if your weather is hot like it is here you should probably do that indoors.  If you can find plants ready to set out you can go ahead and do so now and any time until about 8 weeks before frost.  large heading types may take longer to form heads so check the seed packages or even better talk to a local expert about which varieties to plant.

Here in zone 6 you can usually set out most brassicas until the end of August.

With 10 or more weeks until frost you can also direct sow beets, carrots, collards, lettuce, radish, garden peas, turnips, and potatoes.  Carrots are pretty much cold proof in our climate and will stay perfect all winter long in the ground so plant lots of carrots in your fall garden.

At 8 weeks until frost you can direct sow more lettuce, turnips, radish, arugula, and spinach.  A great thing about the fall garden is that once nights start to cool off your lettuce will stop trying to bolt, and you will be able to pick cool season salad greens throughout the fall from only a few plantings.

At about 6 weeks before frost it will be time to plant lettuce and spinach to establish in a cold frame, green house or other season extender.  This planting will feed you well into the winter in many areas.  When the weather gets really cold it will stop growing, but on fair sunny days growth will continue.  It’s pretty great to be growing fresh salad greens all winter long.  You can worry about building a cold frame or poly tunnel later if you don’t already have one, but get those seeds in the ground now!

You can grow fresh greens like lettuce and spinach all winter long in a simple cold frame, plastic row cover or green house. For best results though you want to establish those crops in the fall while the weather is still warm, and the plants can grow more quickly.

Be prepared to keep everything watered during the remaining weeks of hot summer weather, and also protect tender young plants from marauding insects – row covers are helpful for both of these things.

Growing a fall garden is a great way to make your garden much more rewarding so get out there and brave the summer heat for a while to get one going.  You’ll be glad you did.