Now is the time of year for seed starting. The sun is spending more time in the sky each day, and we’re hoping the frost will not appear too many more times. Our produce season starts the last week of March and we have had a couple unexpected nights when the temperatures went lower than we wanted. Yet, what we have in the field is coming along pretty well considering. We will have baby carrots, lettuce, beets, turnips (a few that made it all the way thru the winter from last year) and potatoes to start the season with.
It’s what’s in the greenhouse tho, that’s making us really happy. Growing from seed is very rewarding and one of my favorite parts of planting a vegetable garden.
Here is a list for seed germination:
Asparagus 10-12 weeks
Broccoli 6-8 weeks
Cabbage 6-8 weeks
Cauliflower 6-8 weeks
Collards 6-8 weeks
Eggplant 6-8 weeks
Kale 6-8 weeks
Lettuce 4-6 weeks
Onions 8-10 weeks
Peppers 6-8 weeks
Swiss Chard 4 weeks
Tomatoes 6-10 weeks
This is not the time it takes for the seed to germinate, but this gives you more of an idea of how long the plant would grow indoors before replanting it outside. The above chart tells you how long before the last frost to germinate your seeds and get them started.
Fill your cell packs with sterile potting soil almost to the top. Place one seed on each. With a pencil, plant seeds just a little into the soil, barely covering with soil. Do not plant too far down, they need some air, moisture and light to grow. Alot of books tell you to plant the seed 1/2 to inch down in the soil, but most seeds really don’t like it down that far. Especially the smaller seeds. Something like a squash seed which is larger, or a melon seed, you can plant a little deeper. The thing the you should remember, is the seed is going to be searching for light, and when it sees some light, it pushes out to try to make it to the light. Therefore, that’s why you don’t push it down and pack the soil, so tight, that no light shines down and hits the seed. Keep your soil most at all times, using a spray bottle filled with lukewarm water. If the soil appears to be drying out too quickly each day, then you can cover with a blanket at night to give them more heat. You can also cover with plastic wrap, but makes sure they are not baking, just keeping warm. Sometimes, if you have a stubborn seed, you can germinate the seed by placing on a wet paper towel, folding it over and keeping it wet, and then force it to germinate. This would be for seeds that are perhaps older and you don’t know if they will germinate or not.
If you have lights, then place them on a schedule of 16 hours on, and eight hours off. When the plants have 3-4 leaves on them then start to fertilize. Keep lights as least 2 inches away from the plants.
You want a nice, healthy plant with some width to it, to plant in the ground. You will want to harden them off by setting outside a little each day, gradually leaving them outside longer and longer. By now the weather should be warming up, and when you know there will be no more frost, you can start looking to plant into your garden. In the south, April 20th is considered a good date that is about two weeks after an average frost date. Several farmers will try to plant some tomatoes outside earlier than that, taking a 50/50 chance that we might have a frost. Only place your tomatoes outside earlier if you have more as backup. If you are only growing tomatoes for your family, than it is best to wait until the last week of April or early May to put your tomatoes outside.
May 13, 2010
We did have frost at our farm in NC (zone 7) two nights ago. All the tomato plants and peppers that had been hardening off outside the greenhouse had to be covered with row covers. The plants were a little confused for two days because our temperatures have been going up and down. We have moved most of the tomatoes down to a place on our farm called shady glenn (which is a spot underneath a pretty good stand of trees, that has lots of pine needles blanketing it and a pond). The plants like the cooler weather, and have indirect sunlight, for the hardening off period. Someone asked thru google search, if they should plant more seeds, in the cells packs, if the first batch does not come up. It mainly depends on timing, for tomatoes, there’s lots of time left, so go ahead and try another seed, perhaps the first ones, were not fresh enough. Peppers for instance, take longer to grow. We have three types of peppers growing, but I wish I had more. We were not able to get any bannana peppers or red cherry hot peppers started in time. I really don’t have enough time to start from seed on pepper plants, but I’m going to try anyway because I have some orange hot habanero peppers, that I’ll try to get by September or Oct. It will take 2-3 months for these seedlings to get any real size to them tho. The crows ate half of our corn that sprouted in the field, so yes, we did have to go back and fill in those holes. We made little brackets around the seeds, so that the crows, could not easily get their beaks down to the seed. Coating the corn with grape kool-aid probably came in 2nd runner up, as a fix for deterring the crows from eating it. For some reason, crows don’t like the taste of grape kool-aid.
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