Seed Starting... Getting Started

One tray of seeds, soil plugs and labels... ready to germinate

I already covered how I make the soil plugs here, so lets move on.  In the picture above, you can see my soil plugs in the baking trays, labeled and seeded, ready to go.  Getting to that point took too much time, but I'll just have to make things work for now. 

Since it is no fun to forget what seeds are in what plug or container, I need labels.  It is quite possible that part of the reason it took too much time is that I might have been slightly OCD on the labels.  To get a better idea, let me explain that process first:

Measuring out the labels

Starting with some 2" wide masking tape, I measure off the tape at 1/2" increments.  These are cut at every inch, but are labeled first on the bottom half of each 1". 

Adding text to the labels

Up till now I've been using a red fine point sharpie marker... but I'll need to do something different, as they are fading a few weeks later.  I'll try black, but I have my doubts about how well that will work.

Cutting the labels to length

One they are cut, I attach them to a square tooth pick.  The sticky side goes to sticky side, and they hold the toothpick quite well!

After you fold it over, stick it in the dirt wherever you are planing your seeds... Nuff said about that!

Putting the seeds into the soil plugs is relatively easy, assuming you can handle small seeds.  I typically take another toothpick and poke a hole, however deep the seeds need to be planted, into the soil plug and wiggle it to open up the hole.

Setting the seeds

Then I pull out the toothpick and drop the seeds in, pushing them down into the hole with the toothpick marked for whatever length they should be planted to.

Hopefully they germinate shortly after...

Enjoy!

Starting Seeds... my soil plug maker

THE TOOL

Have any of you ever heard of a soil cube?  I have, and they seem pretty nice... but they are expensive.  So this year I decided to make one.  I searched the internet for whatever I could find and landed here.  I thought it looked like a pretty good design and determined I'd make one for myself.

I started with a 2" piece of pvc pipe and a knockout cap (it was cheaper than the real thing). Then I took some scraps made by my hole saw while working on my Installing a Generator Transfer Switch series (Part 1, Part 2 and Part 3), ran a bolt through it and put a nut on the other side.  It's a crude handle, but it works.

THE DIRT

You can't (to my knowledge, although I've never tried) just go out and use any old dirt for this... you're probably going to have to spend some money. You'll need to use the following mix:

3 parts peat moss
2 parts sand and perlite mixed
1 part garden soil
2 parts well composeted, compost
sprinkle in some lime and fertilizer
mix with water until it reaches oatmeal consistency... you might have to play with the ratios

THE PROCESS

Making the blocks took some figuring out... I'm sure the real SoilCube would be easier to use, but I digress.  I start out with the plunger in place, as shown in the second picture, and stuff the wet dirt mixture into the other end of the pipe.  When I have it good and full, I'll put that end of the pipe on a hard surface and press down on the wooden plunger/bolt on the other side.  This firms up the soil plug and helps compact it so it won't fall apart.  Then, trying to keep the bolt from tipping, I'll push the dirt plug out of the pipe and into the seed starting tray.

 

THE TRAY

Some people use fancy tray from the store, made to starting seeds... others use tupperware or totes.   These aluminum cooking trays were about $1.50 each and work just fine.  If they get damaged, I can afford to buy a few more without hurting my finances too much... but I'll have to look into something more sustainable in the future.  I'll aso have to be a little careful as the plants get bigger, but by that time they may be outside anyway! 


Hopefully this information helps somebody out!