How To Start Seeds Indoors For Garden - Expert Tips and Tricks

Hello everyone, my name is Jenny Thompson. I'm with the University of Wyoming Extension. I am the coordinator of the Barnards and Backyards project and that involves the extension and a lot of other organizations. And we, our goal is to bring you practical information to use on your place. And so one of the topics that we often cover has to do with growing things. And so for this one, I'm going to be talking about starting seeds indoors. It's a very fun activity to do. It is a wonderful thing to do when the weather is still pretty crummy outside oftentimes. You can get started and see growing things coming to life. Another reason you might want to start plants from seeds indoors is that sometimes you can't find the varieties that you want locally at your local hardware store or nursery or whoever sells plants. So if you start them yourselves, you have a wider choice of plant types of plants to choose from. So I was going to start talking the talk, talking about buying seed and how you go about that and things to look for. But since our presentation today is pretty short, I'm going to keep it more to how to start the seed indoors. So presuming you've chosen your seed that fits your climate well, that's going to have, if you're doing vegetables that have time to ripen in your growing season and that you have that seed sitting by. So you want to look on either the packet or perhaps like catalog information online or on a hard copy catalog and see when you need to start that seed indoors. So a certain number of weeks before your average last frost. How do you figure out your average last frost? Well if you go to our website Barnyards Backyards Wyoming, just google or search for that. You'll pull up our website and click on gardening and we have a ton of different information on growing edible plants there, vegetables and so on. And one of those is a chart that lists the last average frost date for a lot of places around the state. For this particular example, I'm going to use the last average frost date of June 10th. So if you look on this seed packet, which is for some Shasta daisies, it says start indoors in a well-lighted area eight weeks before the last frost. So that's the average last frost. It varies every year, so you just have to choose a date and go with it. So this is another thing that's on the website. So if you don't find it on your packet, you can look at a chart like this and figure out how long before the average last frost date you need to get things started. So once you've looked at that information either on your seed packets or from another source, what I do is sometimes I'm starting a lot of plants from seed. So I will put them in piles. So I'll have a pile for the seed that needs 10 weeks, I have a pile for eight weeks, I have a pile for six and a pile for a week, four weeks and so on. And so I have those piles ready and then I'll look on the calendar and I'll mark the dates and I'm going to start each type, each pile. So how do you do that? Well here's an example with our June 10th average last frost date. So I'm going to start calculating backwards from that. So for two weeks on May 27th, that's the time I'm going to plant the seed that only needs two weeks. And on the 13th will be the seed that needs four weeks. On April 29th, that's the seed that needs two weeks more than that. And so if we go all the way back to April 1st, that's when I would be planting that seed that needs 10 weeks to grow indoors before you're going to transplant it outdoors. That's pretty simple. So what do you need to start seed indoors? Well first of all, you need viable seed. That means seed that is still alive. So a lot of our seeds over time, it will degrade and eventually die. So if your seed's real old, it may not germinate anymore. This varies a lot by plant species. So there's some plants that you can store them for a couple years and that's it. There's others that can be stored for 10 years and be just fine. So it really varies a lot. So you have your viable seed. You now need some clean containers with drainage holes to hold the soil mix. So I often use little cell packs, which are on the right there. There's six little holes per cell pack. I often use those because I'm starting a lot of plants and seeds and it just makes it a little easier. But you can use a whole lot of different things, including recycled materials. And a lot of people do. They'll save like their old solid containers from the store that are plastic and have holes and they'll use those to start their seed. So as long as they can hold the soil mix, they have holes for the water to drain out and they're clean, you're good to go. Next you'll need your growing medium, often called seed starting mixes if you're buying them in the stores. So you can use various types, but I often use that type. So the seed starting mixes are often made out of peat moss and several other things. And the advantage to them is that they have the right consistency to hold the right amount of water next to the seed. And they also tend to not have a lot of diseases in them. So if you go dig the dirt out of your yard and use it to start seed, they are taking a higher chance that you may have brought some diseases in with that soil that are going to kill your seedlings off. So it's just a matter of how much risk you're interested in. You can treat outdoor soil with peat to make it less likely to kill your seedlings off, but it's a bit of a process. So it depends what you want to do. I also like that the soilless mixes don't carry fungus gnats usually, which sometimes you get in potting soil. There's these little bugs that hatch out and fly around your house and they're super annoying and somewhat hard to get rid of sometimes. So you have your container with that you'll put your soil mix in. You need something to catch the water that's going to run through your pots. And so for the six packs I often use trays, plastic trays underneath, but you can use whatever will do the job. If you're using a recycled material container and you have some say old cake pans or something, you can use that as your tray. Whatever works. So none of this is super hard. It's just some tips that will help you in the process. Next you need a good source of light and this can be artificial or natural. So I tend to use fluorescent lights a lot. These are just plain old shop lights that you can buy at any old store, hardware store, and they have fluorescent bulbs in them. I use them just the way they come, that way. Nothing special about them. And they grow very good seedlings if you use them correctly. Other people use other types of lights and some people will use like have a very sunny window they'll use for this purpose. So they'll all work. It's just a matter of what you prefer. I like the artificial lights with using the shop lights because they grow really good compact plants that are tough, that can put up with our conditions once they're outdoors. You also need some reasonable temperatures. So room temperature, maybe a little warmer. So you know like 73 degrees is fine. A lot of the light fixtures, if you grow them that way, they'll put off a little bit of heat too. So that warms things up a little more. And also into some reasonable air circulation so that you don't, your chance for diseases goes down. Excuse me. The next thing that you need is water. So and a way to keep the moisture in until those seeds have germinated. And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. You also need stuff for keeping track of what you planted. Labels, tape, sharpie, that kind of thing. So you may think you're going to remember what you planted but oftentimes when you plant enough things it's really hard to keep track. That's better to label them. So next you just get all your stuff together and take it somewhere where you can be messy. So I often do this like on a basement floor or something. And I'll put newspapers and layers down on the floor and it makes the cleanup super easy. So the first step is to put your soil mix in the container and leave enough room for the seed and more soil. So since I'm often using the soilless mix and they have a lot of peat in them, there's something about them and some other soilless mixes that they don't absorb water real well when it's cold. It takes them longer. So what I'll often do is I'll take the bag of soilless mix and I'll get some warm water and I will pre-wet it. I will basically water it in the bag and let it sit there for a while until it's all absorbed and use that pre-moistened mix to plant in. So once I have it in the container, sometimes I'll compact it down slowly. And so for these little cell things I have like a little stick that I use that I just poke them down. And all it does is it means that the soil won't drop as much after you water it, especially with the soilless mixes. There's a fair amount of air in there and they'll go down a bit. It also improves the contact with the seed a little bit, but it's not crucial. So if you don't want to do it, you don't think it's any big deal. Next you sprinkle the seed on top of the soil mix. The number of seeds that you put in your container depends on what types of plants you're growing and how many you want in there and how large the seeds are and how expensive they are. So in these little cell packs, you know, each of the little holes is maybe like an inch across squared. And so I'll put like maybe two seeds in there oftentimes because there's always a chance one of your seeds won't germinate. And so that often is a good number of seeds there. But if I have some super expensive hybrid tomato or petunia or something, I'll put one seed in each cell because I want to maximize the number I'm growing in with the least fuss possible. After you have your seeds in there, you cover them with a bit of soil mix. So you don't need a whole lot. You just need enough to keep the, unless they need darkness to germinate, which is only a few types of plants, you can cover them up enough that it keeps the moisture in contact with them so they'll germinate. So some some folks don't cover certain seeds at all. They'll just leave them on the top. But then you have to be super careful about them not drying out. The next step, or usually it's the second step before I put the seed in, is to label those containers. So since I grow these under shop lights, I used to use, tried using the little plant stakes that you can use for this purpose, little plastic ones. But the problem with the lights was when you pull out a tray from underneath the light, so you're usually the light is really close to the plants because you want to have a good amount of light in there. And so when you pull the tray out, those little plastic stakes will get caught on the edge of the light and they'll flip across the room. And so I went to a system where I was just using tape. So I'd put the tape, especially that painter's tape works really well for this. I put it on the outside of the tray and then I'll label it. And each of those labeled area goes with one six pack of seed in this instance. But whatever way works best for you to label them is what you should do. It's the same thing to keep track of it. So this is a blood root. It's a native plant. It's Lilusia rudiva. And so that's what's in this particular six pack. Next. So you have your seed in there. You have your mixture in there. You put your seed in there. You covered it up. You've labeled it. Now you want to get it moist. And so you need to water it. So you can water with, I usually use slightly warm water, not hot, but warm so that it'll absorb well. A lot of folks will bottom water when they do seed. And that's because other people will do it from the water from the top, you know, like a regular watering a plant. But you take a little bit of a chance of it disturbing the seed or it gets balanced out by the water or whatever. So some folks will do it from the bottom. And I'll go back here. I'll show you. So how you do that is this six pack, I would just pull up the corner of the six pack and use my watering can and dump warm water into this tray. And so the water would be at the bottom of the tray. It'll absorb into the mix and work its way to the top of the soil. And so when it reaches the top of the soil, which you can tell that it's done that because the soil mix will turn darker once it's wet. So once it does that, you know that it's all the moistened. Excuse me. Now dump out the extra water that's in the bottom of the tray. It's all pretty easy. Excuse me, I have a So that's the process with watering. So you do that until all the soil is damp. And then you cover it up with something that keeps the moisture in. The reason that we do this is because we don't want it drying out while that seed is germinating. But if the seed starts to germinate or dries out, it will die. So it needs to remain moist, but not soggy wet. Just kind of like the moisture of a wrung out sponge is kind of what you want. You want a good mixture of moisture and oxygen in there as well. So I usually cover up the trays. It makes it, or whatever you planted it in, makes it a lot easier to keep that moisture in and not have it dry out. So for the trays, there are like some plastic covers that go over them, like little greenhouses. But you can always use a plastic bag and just put your your container within the plastic bag and close it up. So there's a few plants that need some light to germinate. In that case, you want it to be a clear plastic bag. So then place it in a comfortably warm spot with some light, usually, but not direct sunlight. Like if you have that plastic container over it, it acts like a greenhouse. So if you get too much sun, strong sunlight, it'll kind of cook it, especially if it germinates and gets too hot. So next you monitor the containers for signs of growth. And when you see the little plants start to break through the soil surface, you need to make sure they're in the spot with good light. Otherwise, they'll start stretching and get kind of sprung out. So after the enough of those have germinated, maybe like 50% of them or so, you can remove the plastic cover or plastic bag. If you're growing them under fluorescent lights, keep the plants close to the lights. So oftentimes my lights are only like a couple inches off the plants. You don't want the plants touching them, but they need to be close to get enough light dosage, so to speak, help them grow well. Then you need to leave those lights on for a while each day. And so mine are usually set for 16 hours to be on. And since I'm a busy person, as I'm sure you all are, I use a timer to turn the lights on and turn them off. You just buy a timer and then plug your lights into it and it'll do the job for you. Super easy. Different types of light arrangements. So these are some different types. You will see the main thing that's in common with them all is these are fluorescent shop lights. There's the light, there's a metal chain that hangs down, and there's a hook on whatever you're hooking, they're hooking the chain to so that it holds it. And the reason for that is that as your plants grow taller, you're going to need to move that light up so that it gives the plants more room. And so those chains, the chain link allows you to move it up because you just hook the hook through different sections of the chain. So this is one that's down in the basement, just hanging off the ceiling. This is another style of arrangement in the off-season. They have the lights along this board so they can move back and forth closer together or farther away. And then here's my growing their transplant on just a natural sunlight. So as I mentioned before, you want to monitor the moisture of that soil. You want it damp but not soggy. They need good light to grow and you'll need to move those lights up as the plants grow. So the goal is sturdy, healthy seedlings, not the tallest seedlings you can get. Tallest tall seedlings don't fare well in Wyoming. The wind will whip them back and forth and do some messy things to them. You want stout seedlings, not tall seedlings. So how you judge that and how you figure out if you're getting enough light is you watch them. And plants will start to kind of reach for the light if they're not getting enough of it and they will stretch themselves. And so this area that's called the inner node in between the two nodes I can see on this picture here will start to get longer and longer as it reaches for the light. And if you see that happening you know they're not getting enough light and you need to get them more light. Seedlings have some enemies. The biggest one is a disease called damping off. It's from a variety of fungi and other things that will attack seedlings. And so what will happen is they'll germinate, they'll come up, they'll start growing, and then they'll all flop over one day. And you'll, if you haven't forgotten to water or something, you'll know that you probably have damping off. And there's pretty much not much you can do about it at that point other than throw them away and keep them away from the other plants so it doesn't spread. So the way to avoid that is like I said to use that soilless mix and keep everything real clean so that you can just avoid it in the first place. So when are your seedlings old enough to transplant? Well the thing you want to look for is at least two true leaves. So the true leaves are the leaves that come out of the seedling that look like the adult plant will look like. So a lot of seeds they'll put up cotyledons first. That's these. They're like baby leaves that come out. They're usually a different shape than what the mature leaves will be. They're often really fat because they contain a lot of food that's going to feed that little seedling until it gets going. And there are usually two that come up and dicot. And so the cotyledons come up first. And so you're looking for the true leaves. And that's this third leaf that's come out. And it, this is like a cucumber or squash type plant. And that leaf in the middle looks like the leaves on a mature plant. It's like a similar shape. So when you see two of those come out, then it's time you can start transplanting it. So you can either transplant into other bigger containers as which I usually do. I'm growing those little cell packs. I'll transplant them to a larger container. And they'll keep them inside for an additional couple of weeks until they're ready to go outside and be gradually adapted to the conditions outdoors. Which takes a little bit. Sometimes you can transplant your seedlings straight out into the garden and then you can protect them from there. But usually they've gone on to a larger container before they go outside. And then you can either harden them off, which is basically getting used to the outdoor conditions, more sunlight, more wind, more cold, et cetera. Outdoors until they're more adapted and then you transplant them into the ground. So I hope that was helpful for you today. Like I said, if you go to our website, just look for Barners Backyards Wyoming and it'll pull up and click on gardening. There's a ton of information in there that will help you along your journey to growing plants successfully in Wyoming. Starting plants from the seed is a lot of fun. It provides a lot of joy to a lot of people that are starting them inside. It can make things more economical for you to have a larger garden. But basically it's just a really fun thing to do. So give it a try. Don't overthink it. Don't worry about it too much. And if you have friends that do it, ask them questions. I hope that helped. Thank you. Bye-bye.