I am new to gardening and planting. I did some research and reading and decided to give it a go. Since it was still a cold and there was a chance of frost, i began seeding inside. Here is what I did. I cut cylindrical rolls that you can find in toilet paper and paper towels about 8cm tall each filled it with "soil" specific for planting and planted some seeds according to the instructions on the envelope. I also had a planted so there I planted some herbs (dill, coriander and parsley) I expected that it will take at least a week for something to sprout, but I was very surprised that I got my first sprouts from broccoli cauliflower sunflower and zucchini. Now there reason I suspect it happened so fast is because I had it in a very warm walk in closet. Temperature ranging from 22-26 degrees. They all sprouted very fast and nicely, but now they look weak and yellowish. I suspect that it is because they grew too fast and did not have time to strengthen. On the other hand when i removed it from the closet and other seeds started germinating they were greener, grew slower, but look stronger. Any ideas, thoughts or advice will be greatly apprciated. Thank you, Vadim
As soon as plants sprout, you need to get them under bright lights (40 watt fluorescent) or in a very sunny window.
This is my second year of starting most of my garden from seed, indoors. We live in Nova Scotia, on the South Shore - while this qualifies as 'warm' for Eastern Canada, it is nowhere near as warm as Vancouver. No matter, I'm sure the same principals apply as far as starting seed indoors. I've had pretty good luck starting vegetables such as tomatoes, peppers, cucs, zucchini, any of the cabbage family, onions and brussel sprouts from seed. I don't put them in the dark to germinate as I don't have anyplace to do that. I do use the seed starter trays with the plastic lids to start the seeds and keep them misted with a spray bottle so that the soil doesn't dry out on the top. Once they've sprouted, I transplant to a 4" pot and move to a sunny spot (which I do have). The one thing I do with peppers that is special is set the seed trays on top of the fridge until they germinate as they seem to like warm soil for germination. Herbs are different. I've had good luck with basil, dill, oregano, sweet marjoram and parsley. Rosemary was a different story - planted 12 seeds this year, had 2 germinate and I consider myself lucky as supposedly Rosemary is very difficult to get going from seed. On the other hand, I have to admit, I bought the seed in England in 1995, so I am incredibly lucky that even 2 seeds came to life. I guess what I've learned is 1) don't let your seed trays dry out, but don't let them get soggy either. I have found the easiest way to do this is by using a spray bottle to keep everything misted (and keeping the cover on the seed trays until you're comfortable that what has germinated is what you're going to get). 2) Be very gentle while you're transplanting. The best tool I have is a wooden kabob thing that came in a package of frozen Captain Hi Liner shrimp. The pointy end works great for manipulating the seeds when you are first planting them, the flat end works well for loosening the soil around the edges of your seedling and lifting it to your pot when you are transplanting. Lift them out gently and if you must pull on them, pull gently, gently by the leaves, not the stem. Your goal is to get the little plant out with its root completely intact. As JanR says, get them into the light as soon as you can. Last year, I built a little reflector wall behind my seedlings - I used a foil vapor barrier to cover a 2' piece of plywood, then placed the seedlings in the window. This seemed to help with the seedlings getting light from behind so they weren't all leaning at a 45 degree angle towards the window. Fertilizing - I try to be organic, so I use a VERY diluted fish fertilizer solution at first for the babies, then very slowly increase the strength. We can't safely transplant here before May 24, so the plants do have to be fertilized before they end up in the ground. Best of luck with your efforts! Jo-Ann
Yes, lots and lots of light is needed now. The reason they're spindly is probably because they began to grow in the dark. I like the idea of the reflector. I did something similar one year and it worked pretty well. Also, if you can give supplemental light (fluorescents or gro-lights) that will help, too. Dill, coriander, parsley and other things in the carrot family can be finicky to start indoors. They don't need it really hot to germinate, and they will probably do so faster with fluctuating day and nighttime temperatures. My usual strategy with parsley is to plant the seeds then water them with hot (really hot) water and let them germinate without bottom heat, in our unheated sunroom or a cold frame. You could try that technique with the dill and coriander, but I've had reliable results just soaking these seeds overnight in warm water before planting. The broccoli and cauliflower are cool season crops, so they'll want to grow on in cooler temperatures after they've germinated. The sunflower and zucchini are fast-growing warm-weather plants. If you have them in a warm sunny room you'll have a hard time keeping them contained until planting-out time--they'll be busting out of the pots. Once your seedlings have emerged you need to maintain air circulation in the room they're in, to prevent damping off problems. If you can't run a fan, you can use natural anti-fungal treatments on the soil. There are lots of them: neem, cinnamon, chamomile tea come to mind. Also, keep the surface of the soil DRY-- through judicious watering, bottom-watering if necessary. This will also deter fungus gnats. Good luck. I like the "wooden kabob thingy". Every gardener has a favourite weird tool, I think. I use a little two-pronged hors d'oeuvre fork for picking up seeds or fishing them out of the soaking water and placing them on the soil surface. The top end of the fork is a round ball that is excellent for making depressions for planting or holes for transplanting.
Just for fun, I'm trying something called 'winter sowing' this year. http://www.wintersown.org/wseo1/How_to_Winter_Sow.html Boy, if this works, I'm in, as it seems to be a lot less effort than starting the seed indoors, messing with the lights, watering, fertilizing and hardening off process. Obviously it won't work for everything (peppers & tomatoes come to mind), but I'm hoping it will work with some of the herbs and flower seeds that I don't have the room to start inside. So far, I've tried creeping thyme, alyssum, petunias, lobelia, yellow primrose - all seeds that I've had for quite a while so I won't feel too bad if they don't work. So far, the creeping thyme and alyssum have popped up so I am somewhat encouraged (I wonder if they are from the same 'family'...) Tomorrow I'm going to pop some dill out there and see what happens because the dill I started indoors looks really really pathetic. I'll keep you posted, but if nothing else it's an experiment that might be wildly successful. Who knows? Jo-Ann
You should have no trouble WSing the dill and primrose-- these are easy self-seeders and so they work great for wintersowing. I'm surprised that your thyme worked-- it's a mediterranean plant and it's never self-seeded for me in zone 6. Maybe I'm thinking of the culinary type, not the creeping ground-cover type. Anyway, lucky you! Before I built a big cold frame on the porch, I used to WS stuff in cells and trays with the dome lids, with variable success. The lids were needed to keep the soil from drying out in the sun, and keep the seeds from getting swamped when it rained. But on a sunny day, things would cook. It was always a challenge to balance everything out. If you get really into wintersowing, you might want to look into building or buying a cold frame-- even a small collapsible one you can disassemble after everything is planted out. They're easy to make with scrap wood and a clear lid made of an old window frame or some plexiglass if you can find some cheap.
Update on the W/S: I bought the thyme seeds in England back in 1996 - The seed pack calls it "Common" Thyme and refers to it as being an edible herb. I hope it is edible because I transplanted the seedlings into my herb garden this past week! Checked on them yesterday and they seem to have 'taken'. No luck with the dill or the yellow primrose. Not a single seed germinated. I tried sweet peas as well, and no joy there either. I like the idea of a cold frame as I am getting a little tired of messing with the plastic containers...I finally gave up moving them around (I'm using the large plastic pop bottles which tend to blow over pretty easily) and just set them up on our covered porch. I'm not expecting anything else to germinate at this point, so we're in a holding pattern until I get around to transplanting. Anyway, like everything else, you learn as you go! Thanks for the comments, Jo-Ann The petunias, marigolds, lobelia and alyssum are coming along nicely - I just have to find the time to do something with them...I'm spending a lot of time hardening off everything else I planted indoors trying to get them ready to plant in the next couple of weeks.