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Home | Lifestyle | Home + Garden

Time to turn on grow lights and start early seeds

By Ingrid Sundstrom, Star Tribune

Last update: March 10, 1999 - 10:00 PM

Gardeners, turn on your grow lights! In nine to 10 weeks, you should be able to be begin the outdoor planting of good-sized, sturdy seedlings that you start indoors just about now.

By mid-May, the threat of frost is past (the official average spring frost free date for the metro area is May 21, according to the Minnesota Extension Service). By mid-May, the tomato, pepper, impatiens, marigold and other annual vegetables and flowers you plant in the next couple of weeks will be ready for the great outdoors.

It's a satisfying ritual, seed-starting. It begins in December or January, when the seed catalogs arrive, firing up the imagination and lust for home gardening. Some die-hard and experienced gardeners begin some of their seed-starting operations in January for longer-to-mature perennials and annuals, such as geraniums and lisianthus.

But for most of the garden vegetables -- cole crops such as broccoli and cabbage, tomatoes, peppers, onions, and annuals, including marigolds, petunias, cosmos, snapdragons, ageratum, alyssum, salvia and so on -- mid-March is a good time to get them started.

Now also is a good time to buy the seeds for other plants you'll sow into the ground when it warms up. Very early, almost as soon as the ground is workable, you can plant some vegetables, such as lettuce and peas. Other veggies, such as beans, beets, carrots and onion sets, and flower seeds, such as zinnias and nasturtiums, need to go into slightly warmer ground for germination.

If you've not started seeds before, you'll find it can be easy, especially if you try to plant more common seeds such as those named here.

When you're more experienced, you may want to start seeds that have complicated germination needs, such as precise lighting and temperatures at different parts of the day.

Carefully read and follow planting and growing directions on each seed packet. Many garden centers also have pamphlets with step-by-step, seed-starting instructions.

Good luck, eat well and grace your table with home-started flowers.

Here are a few more general tips:

Choosing seeds

Use fresh seeds (packed for 1999) and follow the directions on each seed packet.

Choose seeds (unless you have lots of experience and training) that are easy to grow; there's a large field, including marigolds, zinnias and cosmos, to tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and squash. Order seeds that are difficult to find in nurseries -- white marigolds, for example, or some of the exotic tomatoes.

When to plant

Seed packets tell you how many weeks you should sow before transplanting. That's generally six to 12 weeks before the danger of frost is past, which in the Twin Cities area is about the third week of May. So plant most annual flowers, tomato and pepper seeds in late March or early April.

Potting mix

Use a sterile potting medium; mixes without soil are recommended and readily available, or you can make your own with equal parts of peat moss, perlite and vermiculite. Be sure your trays and pots are sterile. To sterilize used pots, wash and soak them for half an hour or so in a mixture of 9 parts water to 1 part bleach.

Planting

Fill pots or cells to a half-inch from the top with already dampened potting mix . Plant only one or two seeds per cell or pot if you are using smaller pots. If called for on the seed packet, gently sprinkle up to ¹/₈-inch of dry potting mix on top of the seeds, then dampen with spray from a mist bottle. Watch for directions on some seeds that germinate best in full light; don't cover those with potting mix.

Labeling

Unless you've planted only a half-dozen seeds of one tomato variety, label your seedlings. There's nothing wrong with planting marigolds in your tomato patch, or vice versa, but you'll want to know which is which.

Light

Seedlings need light, if not for germination then certainly for plant growth. Grow your plants near sunny windows, turning them each day so they don't angle toward the sun. Fluorescent lighting provided by 4-foot shop lights with cool white bulbs (no, you don't need the more expensive "grow lights") do the trick. Hang them from basement rafters on chains and 'S' hooks that allow you to move the light up slightly as plants grow. Put your lights on a timer that will keep them on for 12 to 14 hours per day.

Water

You've planted seeds in damp potting mix, but you'll need to keep them moist by watering from the bottom, if your pots have bottom holes, or with a mister. Avoid overwatering or leaving standing water in the trays; it could lead to damping-off disease, in which a fungus or bacteria kills your little seedlings at the soil line.

To help germination, cover plants with plastic wrap or purchased plastic domes, removing them after the seedlings emerge. Also avoid under-watering; they'll croak.

Growing

As the seedlings grow, raise your lights so they don't burn the leaves. As a second set of leaves develops, you can add a weak (half-strength) fertilizer mixture to your water (from the bottom) every week or so for four to six weeks; then increase the water-soluble fertilizer to full strength.

If two or three or more seedlings are crowding a pot, cut out all but the sturdiest one with a sharp scissors. Repot into larger containers as they get larger to promote root growth.

Some people like to place a fan on the slowest setting near (but not aimed at) seedlings -- or just blow really hard on them -- to promote stronger stems.

Hardening off

Once all danger of frost is past (late May; watch the forecasts), prepare to plant seedlings outside in a process called hardening off.

In the week or so before they go out, water them a little less often and discontinue fertilizing so they'll be slightly dry. For a few hours each day, put them outside out of direct sunlight and wind, bringing them in at night if very low temperatures are expected. Be sure they don't dry out. Move them into the sun for an hour or two a day, gradually increasing their exposure to sun; after a week or so, they should be able to withstand a full day of direct sunlight.

Transplanting

After your plants are hardened off, watch for a warm, cloudy, damp day for planting. If it threatens to be gorgeous for weeks, plant late in the day, when the garden is in shadows.

Dig a generous hole for each plant and work in some compost. Make sure roots are well-covered with soil, and water well. With tomatoes only, plant several inches of your seedling's stem, even removing lower leaves; roots develop along the stem to create a sturdier plant.

Put 3-inch-wide cutworm collars of cardboard, torn newspaper or tin foil around the seedling stems so they're half above and half below the soil line. These barriers prevent cutworms from chewing off your tasty, long-nurtured seedling.

Water generously, but don't drown your new plants.

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