It's a nice cool morning out here at Hoss
HQ and
I've been busy in the greenhouse the last week or so
And I want to show you guys kind of what we got going on what we got growing in here
and talk a little bit about
seed starting in
Germination and what might give you really good germination and maybe some reasons why you don't get really good germination
So let's go in the greenhouse. It's full
See what all we got going on
This is one of my favorite times of the year
To be gardening. I love starting seeds. I don't know what it is about it. Just love growing transplants
So, let's see what we got here.
So this little 16 foot greenhouse here is absolutely stocked full of seed trays and
Seedlings that were growing transplants for fall. Now most people would say wow that is way too many
Seed trays way too many seeds way too many plants. What are you gonna do with all those?
Well, we're not gonna sell them
We're gonna use them all and we don't really let any go to waste
If you think about how many gardens we've got to fill with these things there's quite a few we've got my personal garden
We've got dad's personal garden
Mrs. Hoss has got her own little raised bed garden and then I've got a consulting farm that I'm growing some plants for we're gonna
Plant there, their greenhouse is a little hotter this time of year. So it's harder to grow stuff in there
So earlier in the fall, I'm growing a lot of plants for them as well
So everything here will get used nothing will go to waste
Now, let's take a look at the varieties we've got going on here and
See what kind of germination we're getting. Alright, so right here. We've got a Savannah Sweet onion
And if we could look down here, we've got some of these little guys coming up already
They're not all emerge from the soil. They're starting to come up
So we're gonna grow our own onion plants this year
We're also gonna get some from Dixondale, but we're gonna grow our own onion plants to see how those turn out
Over here looks like dad has snuck in here
And tried to jump the gun on me and planted some lettuce
He's got some Cherokee, some Buttercrunch, some Skyphos, Calshot all pelleted lettuce
Varieties there and I think it may be a little too early for lettuce, but we'll see. We'll see how he does with it
I'm gonna wait a few more weeks before I start my lettuce
And then we've got here we've got some
Calendula, which is a cool flower and
these take a little longer to get up but uh
They're starting to emerge there. So we'll be planting those in the garden help get some beneficial insects in there for the fall
We've got some Kestrel beet here. We've got some Early Wonder beet here
see what we got here some
Laurentian rutabaga
really good germination on those
Over here we've got two flats of these Matejko leeks this is a hybrid variety of leek
And you can see there. We're getting some good good germination on those guys excited about planting some leeks in the fall
We grew leeks
In January last year and did really good
But I'm gonna grow them all throughout the winter this year and then the last few flats over here
We've got some cabbage. We've got some Cheers cabbage, some Charleston Wakefield, and some Rio Grande cabbage on the end.
We go over here to the other side of the greenhouse
We've got some of this southern giant curled mustard
But you can direct seed that but I thought I'd try some in seed trays
just to see how it worked if I grew out some nice transplants and spaced it out further and
Then we've got some Scarlet kale and right here. We've got some nice
Touchstone gold beets and beets are
traditionally multi germ so each seeds gonna give you
Two or three little sprouts there and I need to come in and thin those out
but those are gonna be some nice beet transplants early fall
and if we scoot on over here, one of my favorites for fall is
This Green Magic broccoli and I've got two flats of that planted
everybody loves
fresh broccoli
And we got some cauliflower here some Snow Bowl and some Purple cauliflower and then over here
We've got some brussel sprouts. We got a flat of the green Jade Cross ones a flat of the Red Bull
and then on the end here some of our
famous Tiger collards one of the most productive crops you can grow in the garden.
Now like I said earlier, this greenhouse is only 16 foot and we've got a shelf on each side
So we are a little bit limited in space this time of year when we're trying to get everything going
We do fill it up pretty quick
but
since it's warm outside
Mornings been getting a little cooler
What we'll do is once this stuff actually germinates once it sprouts inside the greenhouse here
We'll move it outside and put it on a pallet. Just let it get Sun out there
This works really well. If you're around your greenhouse or your trays all day and can keep them watered. They really need water
Three or four times a day. It seems like if you're working all day
This might not be the best strategy but it works for us because we're here by the shop all during the day. So
Once they're germinated we put them outside. Let me show you what that looks like
So once the tray gets completely
germed out we get everything coming up nicely in the trays
we'll move it outside and we'll just put them on a pallet like this right here and
The pallet is gonna help them drain. You don't want to sit them just right on the grass or the dirt
they're not going to drain very well and the plant roots are gonna try to
Root down in the grass or dirt. So putting them on a pallet like this works really good and
You can see we got really good germination with all these guys. Let's see what we got here. We've got some
Blue Knight kale
which is a more kind of frilly kale we've got
One of our favorites there the Lacinato kale we've got this All Top turnip, which is a new variety. We just started carrying
That's doesn't make much of a root or no root at all all turnip leaves, which is kind of what I like
And then we've got some Kohlrabi here some Purple Vienna kohlrabi
Nice germination on that we've got some white
Or green kohlrabi there on the end and then here is our Flame Star
cauliflower nice
Good germination there
so we put them out here and this will kind of help to harden them off and help to finish them off and
Give us a lot more room in our greenhouse.
So now that I've shown you everything that we got growing in here the main reason I got you here today is I wanna tell
you three reasons
Why your seeds may not be germinating?
So these are three
important factors that are going to give you really good germination
If you do all three of these you should be in good shape
If you're not doing one of these three and you're getting poor germination, this could very well be why.
so the first one I want to talk about is
Moisture, okay
So our seed starting mix we use this Pro mix right here
This stuff when you get it is pretty dadgum dry
Especially if it sits out in the greenhouse like this now, this is a really good commercial grade seed starting mix
We firmly believe in it. We've tested a lot of the others and this one is the one we go to
But like I said, it's really really dry. And so what will happen sometimes we look at the seed tray right here
Get that in focus is that you'll feel this guy up
with soil and
People will water it, but they don't get the water all the way down here they're just watering the first
Top half of this cell it takes a lot of water
To get this stuff wet initially and what we see a lot of times is people think they're watering their whole tray
But they're really only watering the top half of it. So you need to suck this soil in really good
Before you start to plant here some moisture
Really important having enough moisture and also having trays like these that drain really well
In addition to soil moisture. The other big factor on getting seeds to germinate well is heat
Now that's not near big a player this time of year as it is in the spring
So this time of year, there's plenty of heat to go around we're actually wanting it to cool off a little bit
So we don't have to use heat mats
But in the spring we do have to use heat mats to get that soil to a certain optimal germination temperature
So if it's cool where you are you certainly need to make sure that soil is warm enough
So those seeds can germinate usually at least around 75 degrees or so, if not warmer for some crops
So heat is really important but this time of year we don't have to manufacture that heat the sun has given us plenty
Inside this greenhouse here and then the third and probably the biggest reason I see
people have trouble with
Getting their seeds to germinate or getting a good germination rate is that they just bought sorry seeds
You know like a lot of things in life you get what you pay for and if you buy cheap sorry seeds
You're gonna get sorry germination. That's just the way it is
There's a lot of seed companies out there. They're too worried about
putting non-gmo all over everything and all these other things and they're not really concerned with their germination and you can tell it when you
Buy those seeds and you plant a whole flat and you only get half of it come up or it comes up really slow
We don't do that here. We believe in really good germination rates and sending out really high-quality seed and we stand behind that and
for that reason
That's why we always put the germination rate
On every seed packet we send out and you can see with these Jade Cross Brussels sprouts there you're getting a
97%
Germination rate even tells you the date tested that was tested in
August of 2019 so not long ago
at all, so
We're testing our seeds
every six to nine months around here
So you're always getting fresh seeds if we test a batch of seeds and the germination rate comes back low
We throw them away. We don't try to save them and sell them. We don't want any old
bad germ seeds in our warehouse
We're gonna send you only the best what we're actually using to grow in our gardens as well.
So I hope you enjoyed this little
Walk around the tiny greenhouse here a little tour of what we got going on what we got started what we're growing
This is gonna be a busy place the next few months
Just getting lettuce going in here getting some more onions going lots of stuff going on in this greenhouse
Man, it's just really fun to be in here starting these seeds and watching them grow it's just
really really enjoyable to do it if you have a greenhouse definitely use it. If you don't have a grow room or a greenhouse
I would highly consider
You building one or purchasing one.
It's one of the most fun things you can do on the homestead is starting seeds and getting excited for fall planting.
I'll put some links below to our fall seeds so you can check those out. Hope you guys enjoyed this video.
We'll see you next time.