hi everybody this is Noelle at Petitti Garden Centers in Oakwood Village and
it's winter and we're stuck inside and we're gonna do some seed starting why
should you grow plants from seed because it's easy it's fun it keeps everybody
busy all ages have a good time doing it and you can grow your own beautiful
flowers or vegetables or herbs out in the garden for you but start him inside
in the winter and you'll have a head start before you go outside so to get
started it's pretty economical to start with usually start-up costs are
anywhere between like let's say 10 to 20 dollars depending on what you use and
I'll give you some options here so you can pick your own the first thing of
course is your seed selection so don't be like a kid in a candy store when you
come to Petitti's you're gonna see all these different seed racks and all these
different options but if you're just starting seeds for the first time just
pick easy starters and start very slow and very basic so some of your easiest
seeds are actually some of your bigger seeds to handle out there so something
like zinnias for example so I have zinnias California Giants here this is
part of the botanical interest series and these seeds are pretty large
normally when you're seeding larger seeds it's 2 and 1/2 inches times their
width so seeds that are I don't even know maybe 1/8 inch wide you're not
going very deep in the soil ok so just be aware and your seed pack will tell
you that so I wanted to tell you there's a lot of information on seed packages
hold on to them they're gonna tell you what light the seed wants to grow in
what type of soil depth how far you plant them apart so all that good
information save it in a photo album or in a journal so you have it okay the
other thing that we start at this time of year so usually end of February
beginning of March are cold crops so there's plenty of vegetables your
cabbages your onions your broccoli family all of those guys can get started
now especially leaf lettuces you can start them early and they'll grow cool
inside the house and that'll work out fine so seed selection right
now try to keep it simple don't start things too early always read your seed
package sometimes these plants take 10 weeks 12
weeks to even develop so look at that number and make sure you calculate the
right time so they're ready to go May 15th or May 30th when you're ready to
plant okay so the next thing is containers you can grow anything in any
type of container what you normally see is a plastic tray okay so this is more
like a drip tray or a drip pan if you will or a cell tray and then you'll see
cell packs okay so some cell packs are six cells some are for whatever you have
and each of those cells can be planted with different types of plant material
or you can use peat pots okay whoops peat pots or peat squares or even peat
pellets these are pretty fun to grow in as well compressed peat and what you do
is you want to make sure you have drainage so drainage is the key make
sure you have drainage hole in the bottoms of your pots that you are
seeding in the next thing you want is seed starting soil okay so make sure
it's a seed starter it's a much lighter really well draining soil it'll dry out
pretty quickly so when you open that bag it's gonna like poof the peat moss in
your face and it's usually peat moss perlite and vermiculite just like
potting soil is but it's just way lighter more airy okay so what I
normally do is I'll take my spray bottle and I'll go ahead and I'll spray some
water right into that bag so it kind of keeps the peat moss at bay if you will
so fill up your trays make sure you fill them up with just about a quarter inch
maybe of soil or excuse me watering space and so when you do water when you
start to take care of these seedlings the water's gonna stay and go right down
into the cell or the pot instead of bubbling over the sides okay so give
yourself a little bit of space the other thing that we're looking for is light so
light is crucial with seed starting about 75% of your seeds are gonna want
bright sunny areas to start and germinate okay so what you want is you
want 12 sixteen hours of light a day and that's
a lot especially in Northeast Ohio in the winter so if you can put them in a
sunny the sunniest window you have south facing is awesome west facing is great
even east facing if you have a good amount of light if you don't guess what
we've got some lighting options so again you might see those fluorescent grow
tubes you might just use a little grow bulb that looks like one of the the
energy-saving LED bulbs and you can just plug that into a lamp and go ahead and
shine that on your seed starting area so there are plenty of light options
available the last thing that we're really looking at is fertilizer so you
don't even do fertilizing of seeds until way down the road usually about four to
six weeks after you started seeding until those plants have developed a set
of excuse me two sets of true leaves so literally one set two sets and then you
can actually start fertilizing we usually recommend a liquid fertilizer so
it could be like this Espoma organic grow formula or a Miracle Grow or
what-have-you but follow the package directions and usually mix it about half
strength so you're gonna dilute it with more water than normal and then you can
feed your seedlings very slowly you don't want to burn them after all the
work you've done with them okay to start out so I've already put soil in here and
of course watering is going to be one of those keys too so make sure you've got
your spray bottle that's always really helpful or just a small watering can but
the spray mister is really really nice and you filled your trays with the soil
you have about a quarter-inch of watering depth so you can keep them all
looking really really nice and moist of course spray the soil before you get
started so it's nice and moist it's a nice dark brown color so when you do go
and seed you know the seeds are gonna stick to the soil and be ready to go I'm
gonna start this lettuce mix it again lettuces are cold crops it doesn't
matter what kind of lettuce you're growing and you can just pour some of
these seeds out into your hand and you'll notice lots of different seed
colors because it's all these mixed greens that's in this baby gourmet mix
and you just sprinkle a couple maybe two-three lettuce seeds into the soil
and on the seed packet it'll tell you just lightly press them in okay about an
eighth of an inch into the soil because they really do like light to germinate
now when you do that when you're finished go ahead and spray mist again
make sure they're moving down into the soil they've gotten their moisture and
you're ready to go okay now how do you keep that moisture in there no problem
you can use a dome put it right over the tops of your seedlings once your
seedlings have germinated and popped guess what they're really they've grown
enough that you can take that dome off they don't need that extra humidity
anymore so that's good I have also had gardeners use plastic wrap or saran wrap
and have covered their flat with that removed it watered covered it again and
when those seeds germinated they were ready to go to take that plastic wrap
off okay so you can use that too one other option that I forgot to mention
was recycled containers so if you eat a lot of yogurt or you have some carry out
trays that are clear those packages work really well you just need to wash them
and it's the same thing you can reuse reuse these types of plastic materials
but you want to wash them in hot soapy water get them nice and clean and then
dip them and a low-percentage bleach solution usually one part bleach ten
parts water dip them into that solution rinse them off and then let them air dry
and you've got a sterile sanitized container that you can grow in I forgot
to say poke holes in the bottom of your yogurt containers and your carry out
trays as well okay cuz drainage again is key
other than that tag your plants you can use plant tags okay there's lots of
types available or you could just use your plastic fork from lunch again wash
it off and then you can put lettuce right on there with a sharpie marker and
you're ready to go you've marked your seeds as well so that'll work out
just fine and recycle some plastic materials out there too if there's
anything I've forgotten or if you have any questions please post them below
we'll definitely get back to you on them and enjoy your seat starting