Seed Starting Indoors Under Grow Lights 101

What's going on everyone? Kevin from Epic Gardening here. Today we're doing seed starting basics. By the end of the video, you're going to know my approach to starting seeds, which works really well for me indoors. So I've got my system here. We're going to talk about that. I've got my seed storage container, which I've upgraded since the last time I've done a video like this. So let's get into it. The first thing I want to show you is just a handy way to store seeds. Now, I've come up with a couple methods in the past. This one I got from my friend Deanna. Now it's basically a photo organizer. So what I've done, for example, if I want to get my lettuces, I've got them all right here. I can pop it open. I have all my packs perfectly saved and organized exactly how I want. So that's a fun little tip before we get into the seed starting. This thing right here has saved my life. So the next thing I want to explain is containers. Now there's a lot of different ways you can do this. You can DIY it with eggshells, pots, newspaper, et cetera. This is what I'm using right now. It's from Gardener's Supply Company. And you might be saying it's just a normal tray. And in effect, this part is pretty normal. It's a 24 cell insert. They're a little bit larger than the average just because, you know, it's only 24 cells. It's not like 72 or a hundred. But what makes this one pretty unique and actually very simple, because I'm all about simplicity, especially when you're seed starting, there's a lot of things that can go wrong. This has proven to prevent many of those for me. So it's got a bottom tray here. This tray is empty. And then there's a platform right here. Now this platform, you fill this part up with water, you put the platform on it, and then you put this on, which is effectively just like a capillary mat. It's a sponge like substance that is a little bit longer. You can see, it's a little bit longer than the tray cause it kind of comes off right there. Now the reason for that is you put the edge down and then water will wick up from here all the way across this mat. And then when you have soil or seed starting mix, you put it in here. The soil touches from the bottom of these holes, the capillary mat and water will wick upwards from the bottom. Then what you do is you put your humidity dome on, wait for the seedlings to pop off, take it off, and you've got pretty much consistent moisture that's being bottom watered. So that solves a couple different problems in the garden, especially when you're starting seeds. You're not over watering, but you're also not forgetting to water because it's pulling from the bottom and auto watering for you. And then second, you're preventing almost all cases of damping off disease unless you're not using sterilized equipment, which we're going to talk about in a second. But figured I'd run through this. Like I said, there's many ways you can do this. This is my preferred method right now just because it works really, really well. It's very consistent and that's what I'm about. I don't want a lot of errors happening in my seed starting process. Next thing we're talking about is the soil or the seed starting mix. Now here's one that I like a lot. Again, it's from Gardener's. It's their organic seed starting mix, Gardener's Supply Company. This one from Espoma is also pretty solid. It's an organic seed starting mix. So basically both of these are organic seed starting mixes. So then the question becomes, you know, how do I make my own if I want to and why does it, what's the difference between like a seed starting mix and really any other type of soil mix? So let's take a look at what's in both of these. And then that'll inform how to make your own if you want or just give you some knowledge. What's in it? Why is it better? Why is it called a seed starting mix? Why does it work well for seeds? So in our Gardener's mix you've got bio-blended compost, which is compost manures and plant materials. So effectively it's just compost, sphagnum peat moss, perlite and then mineral nutrient amendments. So there's some nutrition in the form of compost. Then you've got your peat moss for water retention, your perlite for drainage and then some extra amendments right there. So let's take a look at the Esmoma mix. It says 75 to 85% of peat moss and then peat humus, perlite, earthworm casting. So this is much heavier on the peat moss, but then they've added some mycorrhizal fungi, which I've talked about quite a bit as well as some other beneficial bacteria and fungi. So really interesting mix here. You may even try to compare and contrast. For the purposes of this video, I am going to go with the Gardener's Supply Company one because it's the one I've had slightly better results with. Alrighty. So it's time to take a little look at what our mix is like. And you know, seed starting mix in general is just much finer grained. So, you know, compared to a raised bed mix, there's not going to be a lot of wood chip products, not a lot of like forest products in this. You want it to be very finely grained and you can see here, I'll take a little spoonful of it, crunch it out and put it up to you guys. You can see it's extremely fine grained and that's what you want. You don't want your seedlings to be running into a bunch of things. So what I'm going to do now is you want it to be kind of like a damp, like a sponge you're already squeezed out. That's the dampness that you're going for. And I really do like to moisten it before I add it into my trays because the job just is a lot easier and it's just a lot easier to kind of get this big cauldron of soil and go ahead and mix it all up. So I just do this because, you know, usually I get a little messy, but I'm trying to practice being a little bit more sanitary here in the garden, especially because I'm starting seeds actually right now in my bedroom, which you might say is a little crazy. But with this system that you're about to see in a little bit, uh, it's just a really cool way to do it. I wake up in the morning, I can check on my seedlings, see how my houseplants are doing. And so I'm just going to go ahead and keep on mixing, mixing, mixing. Okay, we are mixed up and it is now time to take it into the tray. Now one thing I forgot to mention is the importance of sterilization. You know, this was a sterile mix. You saw me open the bag up and then I'm using a new tray. If I wasn't using a new tray, I would go through a disinfection process where I'd use a mixture of food grade hydrogen peroxide and water and then just dunk these trays, my utensils, anything I'm using for seed starting in that to just kill off anything that could potentially colonize and hurt these seedlings early in their life. So let's go ahead and get this into the tray. So because of the tray design, like I said, I'm going to hydrate this capillary mat and fill up the reservoir just so I don't have to worry about it later. And you know, if you're using a different system, of course this step isn't going to be relevant to you, but you know, make sure maybe even put a little bit of water in the bottom of the tray just so you have some of that bottom watering going on. But what we're doing now is we are just going to fill these up. What I like to do is like to get it pretty close to the surface. Um, but not all the way. Then I sow and then I sprinkle another layer. So that's how I do my soil depth. I don't necessarily poke holes all the time. I like to do it this way. Works a little better for me. And honestly it's a little bit less effort. So let's go ahead and scoop in. So here's what I'm going to be starting today. It's a funky mix of things. I figured it'd be fun to do that with you guys. Got those Job's tears from my other video. I've got my loofah. I've got just a classic California wonder pepper. This is a special one. So this is a very rare variety of pepper from my friend Jason over at Bo Hiccup Pepper Hut. It's a cross that he created. So there's not too many of these seeds. It's a peaches and cream, uh, pepper. That's a really, really hot. So we're going to see how that one goes. Then I've got classic nasturtiums, which kind of grows a weed here in San Diego, but I'm still going to grow them. We've got Glacier early tomatoes, a really good early tomato variety, probably my favorite one. Then I've got a rainbow cherry, which is going to be fun. And then we've got our Chinese pink celery. So it's a good little mix and that gives us some opportunity to talk about different types of seeds as we seed them. Before we even start doing seeds, we got to talk about labeling. If you don't have any kind of label and you don't write these things, let's write nasturtium. That's going to be the name. If there's any, and this is terrible handwriting. If there's any variety, write the variety and then write the date. So this is March 2nd, 2019. If you don't do this guys, you are going to hate your life later. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to put that back here. I'm planting this vertical row. So this label will apply to all of these. So the first in the ground is going to be nasturtiums. Now I get a lot of questions about how deep, what do I have to do, et cetera. You really have to read the back of the seed packet guys because every seed's different. This one says plant it an inch deep because it requires darkness to germinate. So obviously that's what I'm going to do. Now another thing to talk about, if you don't have any info on the back of your seed packet is the size of the seed. This is a very big seed. Generally you go at least twice the length of the seed deep into the soil. So this would be at least a half an inch. So we're going to drop two in per hole and I have a rule that I usually almost always will do two per hole unless you're talking about like a compound seed, like a chard or a beet. And that's just because it's simple math. You want to guarantee germination. I have an entire video on that. So our nasturtium is in. Our next one in is the luffa gourd, which I'm really excited about this year. This is a big seed. I'm going to plant it vertically. So I'm going to plant it just like that because I want where the seed leaves to emerge. Uh, I want them emerging at the absolute best place. I don't want them to have to do any work. They don't have to do absolutely. So I'm going to plant them vertically so that when it sprouts, it doesn't have to reorient itself upwards. So that is going to be my go to for our luffa gourd. So as you can see, this pink celery seed is extremely, extremely small. So what I do is I come through and I sprinkle sow it just right on the surface almost. And then I'll come through and apply a thin layer of seed sorting mix over the top. And that's the way I cover it. I don't throw it down deep into holes because it's going to have to do way too much work to actually get up out of the soil, might not even be able to do it. So that's how I treat a very, very small seed. I just wanted to show you guys these seeds. These are the Job's tears. And so you're growing them in effect kind of for the seed itself. So we're seeing a little preview of what we're going to see in the future if I can get these to grow correctly. Very big seed, kind of has this glossy look almost has the sound of like hard candy. So these are going to go in again, trying to make them do as little work as possible. So putting what I think is the sprouting tip up and then just gently pressing down into my seed starting mix. And again, we're going to go ahead and cover with a little bit more seed starting mix, but making sure to get these a little bit deeper. All right. So now that I've got all of these seeds in there, I'm just going to come through and apply a tiny bit more as a topper. And this is just my way of making sure that I've got the right seed depth. So instead of digging holes, like, I mean, I did definitely depress these a little bit, but I like to just add on top instead of digging and then pulling in. Um, it's just, to me, it's a bit more reliable. It's also a bit easier and, and just a nice smooth process. So I'm just coming through, not stressing about it too much. And I will give these a very light top water and that's not necessarily to moisten the soil per se, but it is to get the soil to adequately adhere to the seed. So it's not just floating in an air pocket. And if it is, you know, then it might not be getting the moisture that it needs to germinate. And so that's why I do that. It's not necessarily to moisten it. Cause remember we already moistened it earlier on in the video. So we shouldn't have to worry about that problem, but a nice little quick water helps form that soil. So the next topic to talk about and probably the most important of all is our lighting. Now it's the most important because we have to remember how plants view light. They do not have eyes. They don't see light like you and I. They use light to convert into energy to produce and run all the chemical processes, all the life processes that make them grow. And so for us we might look at a light and say, Oh, you know, hmm, I think that's enough light for my plant. Plants don't think that way. So plants are responding to the spectrum of light that they can use for photosynthesis, the photosynthetically active radiation. And another thing that you think about is you think, okay, well, you know, if my, let's say I have my light a foot away from my plant canopy and then I move it two feet away, well it's only going to get half as much light. It's actually not true. The inverse square law of light basically says that light falls off at the square of the distance. So if it's a foot away and it's getting a hundred percent of light, you move it two feet away, it's getting 25% as much light. So placement is the thing that causes leggy seedlings. You really can't get away with placing it in a windowsill for too long. It's just simply not enough light and you can't get away with placing it too far away. So this is relatively close and I've had good results with about this distance, which is about a foot or so for the power of these lights. So these are 30 watt high output LEDs. They're white LEDs. They're putting out relatively full spectrum throughout the PAR range or the photosynthetically active radiation range. But I would recommend if you don't have a system like this, which is from Gardner Supply Company, you can get the Agrobrite T5 which has a really, really good cost to light output ratio for plants. And so I'd recommend as a general rule of thumb for spacing of light, you basically want it as close as humanly possible without burning your plants. Cause you get it too close, the heat output of the lamp is actually going to harm the seedlings. But right above that point, you're getting maximum or as close to maximum light output on the plant tissue as you can without sacrificing the health of the plant. So in this video on seed starting, we've talked about soil, trays, different methods and especially lighting and then what to do as far as actually sowing the seed. I know there's a lot of questions you guys have that are either after this part of the process or maybe something I didn't exactly cover in this video. Please leave those in the comments so I can do a series on seed starting to try to cover all the different topics and all the different questions you guys have. And one more thing, if you'd like a free pack of organic seeds, I'm sending those out to anyone who's pre-ordering my book, which is coming out May 7th. So it's coming out pretty soon. I'm really super stoked about it. I talk about all stuff like this in the book. It's one third gardening basics, practical basic gardening principles for someone like you or I who's trying to learn. And then there's six different methods in the book for growing in urban environments. So it's going to be container gardening, raised beds, indoor edibles, vertical, balconies, rooftops and hydroponics. Then at the last third of the book, it's going to be growing problems. So deficiencies, you know, pests, diseases, and then what I call gardener induced errors. So like things you and I do that we just make a mistake in the garden that are really common. So if you want to pre-order that, please go to epicgardening.com forward slash book and then follow the instructions there. I will send you some free organic seeds as a way to say thank you. And until next time, good luck in the garden, keep growing and I'll see you in the next one.