Hey guys it's Brijette with San Diego Seed Company; we own and operate a certified organic
one-acre urban farm in San Diego, California. Kellogg Garden Organics has asked me to do a video
about seed starting, which is a topic we're very passionate about. So why would you want to start
your stuff from seed? Well, there's lots of great reasons, number one is it's much more economical.
In a tiny little pack of seeds you can get hundreds of plants. Also, there's way more
varieties that are available to you, thousands of varieties that are available in seed pack form not
in plant. So, that's the why, now what's the how? How do you start your stuff from seed? So, the
first thing I always tell people is, if you can start with really good soil it will make all the
difference and you'll have so much more success. If you can start with something like a seed
starting mix you will be much more successful. Why do you want to start with seed starting mix?
Because it's specially formulated for that specific thing. The soil is light and fluffy,
it allows water to penetrate easily, and it allows for the roots of the plant to grow very quickly,
which is what you want when you're starting your seeds. Now, let's say you just have a bag,
this big of seed starting mix. How do you make this go as far as you possibly can?
Well, you can take a pot and you can fill it with your garden soil ,and then you can simply put
in the middle really good seed starting mix, and that's what you're going to plant your seeds into.
Why? Because a seed starting mix is going to allow for that seed to germinate quickly,
it's going to hold on to moisture, and it's going to allow for its roots to penetrate down
into that garden soil really quickly. Another really important part of seed starting mix,
the particle sizes are very small and so it's not going to have a big piece of, of say, a piece of
mulch on top that's going to keep the seed from germinating. That's how you can make a bag like
this go really far. Now, the other considerations when you're doing seed starting besides soil is,
how deep do you plant the seed? That is a common mistake that gardeners make. Well, luckily for
you on our seed packs, if you look on the back, and most seed packs, I think all seed packs will
say exactly how deep you need to plant the seed. Now, let's say somebody gives you some seed it
didn't come in a seed pack, how do you know how deep to plant it? As a general rule of thumb you
plant the seeds twice as deep as the width of the seed. Now, let's think about that for a minute
basically it means a bean seed is this big, you're going to plant it this deep a pepper seed is
pretty small, so, you're going to plant it pretty close to the surface it's only going to have about
1/4 of an inch of soil on top of it. Now, the reason why I love seed starting mix is, let's
say you plant it a little too deep, it's light and fluffy enough that the seed will still be able to
push all the way through that soil. So that's a really important factor. The other mistake that
people commonly make when they're seed starting is, they don't keep the seeds moist the whole time
while they're germinating. That's so important, your soil and your seed needs to remain moist to
germinate. If it doesn't the seed will shrivel up inside the soil and it will never sprout.
So, those are the common mistakes that people make when they're starting their seeds. So, now we know
how you do it, now the next question we always get is, where do you do it? We do all of our
seed starting in our greenhouse. But, we know that most people don't have access to a greenhouse. So,
where do they want to do their seed starting? If you live in a mild climate that doesn't get hard
frost and the the winters are pretty mild, you can actually start many of your seeds outside.
If you're in an area that still has snow or that's really cold, you have to do your seed
starting inside. Some of the tips when you're doing seed starting inside is, for things like
peppers and tomatoes and eggplants, they actually like a little bit of heat. So, that's where,
when you watch videos or you read, you'll hear about people putting heating mats underneath their
trays. That will allow for the seeds to germinate a lot quicker. They also need adequate sunlight.
So, if your seed starting inside you need to do it either underneath a light, which is a grow light,
that will allow the plant to grow with the uv light, or next to a window. So, let's
troubleshoot your starts for a second and see why some things happen. For a lot of us gardeners,
if your seedlings are looking really long and lanky, why is that? Well, they're either reaching
for the light through the window perhaps, or if you have a grow light that grow light is
too far away from the plant, and it needs to be a lot closer. If your seeds don't sprout at all
ask yourself did I plant it too deep? Or, did I not keep it moist enough the whole time for the
seed to germinate? Those are big common mistakes that people make. The next question we always get
is, when do we plan it outside? Well it's a little difficult to know, but for us, as a general rule
of thumb, we try to get our starts as big as we can before we plant them outside, so that they
have the best chance of surviving bugs and any other issues that you can have in the garden.
This tomato is at the perfect size to transplant outside. Now, some growers can plant it when
it's a little bit smaller, but the goal of seed starting is to get your plant as big
and as healthy as you can, so that it gets a head start when you plant it outside.