Maryland Grows

Do you want to learn how to start your own seeds for garden transplants? Did you just look at the title of this post and say, wait, it’s December, why would I be thinking about this now? If your answers are ‘yes,’ then read on.

You begin to think about seed-starting in December rather than in March because it’s always better to hit the ground running. This is especially true if you’re new to the process. If you wait until it’s seed-starting time to start gathering your equipment and figuring out how to make it all work—and you’re also trying to prep a garden for growing—you are going to be stressed out. Spend a little time this month considering your upcoming needs (maybe even put a few items on a gift list?) and then you’ll have plenty of time to get organized.

We have a great guide to seed-starting on the HGIC website. But no guide can cover everything, and I generally find they don’t start with the absolute basics. The first question to ask isn’t “What kind of lights should I use?” or “What seeds should I start and when?” The first question is “How do I make this work in my own home?”

Location, Location, Location

Where should you set up your lights, and how much space do you need? I bet if you asked a bunch of gardeners (and their patient spouses) where seed-starting belongs, about 90% of them would say “the basement.” But of course some of us don’t have basements, and some basements are cold and damp, or are full of stuff, or are just not a place we like going. If you have a pleasant finished basement, with heating, that is not constantly occupied by teens playing video games, it may be the ideal space. But don’t begin with that assumption.

Here are some needs of a seed-starting spot to consider:

• Comfortable temperature. Whatever level of heat you prefer to live in is probably fine for young plants, but you really don’t want to force them to grow in the cold. There are ways to warm them up, but why not give them what they need to begin with? Chilly basements are for storing root vegetables and wine, not for persuading tomatoes to germinate.
• Access to electrical outlets. Gotta plug in those lights. Make sure you’re not going to trip a circuit breaker. Or trip over too many extension cords.
• Access to water. It’s good to have a sink nearby so you don’t have to carry water too far. Also handy for washing pots and seed flats.
• In sight, in mind. The more often you look at your plants, the more likely you are to catch small problems before they become large ones. Don’t hide them away in the most inaccessible corner.
• Enough space. I advise beginning seed-starters to start small, but of course you’re not going to take that advice. (I mean, I didn’t.) Read the sections about lights and furniture below while you’re considering, and try not to plan for more plants than you can fit in your garden. But do remember that plants seeded into small cells may need to be transplanted into larger pots before going into the ground. Better to grab all the space you can for this project even if you don’t think you’ll use it all. You will never have enough, mwhahaha.
• Protection from small friends. Make sure your seedlings aren’t going to be uprooted by curious toddlers, or chewed on by pets (you should see the elaborate fence I use to keep my cat from eating my pepper plants), or chewed on by animals that are not pets.
• Protection from annoyed spouses or others who share your home. The lights will be on for at least 16 hours a day. This may or may not coincide with everyone’s sleep schedule.

There. Whatever room you are now picturing, that is the room you are going to use. Think outside the basement. You can make it work.

Plants Are Furniture

Seed-starting trays do not float in mid-air, so you’ll need something to support them. In the basement, this might be an ugly utility shelf; in the living room, you’ll want something a little more attractive. There are about a million ways to set up your growing space, and if you want to spend money, there are plenty of companies ready to sell you an entire growing system. But you can assemble the components yourself for much less. I recommend a wire shelving unit in a color that works with your décor. Or maybe you already have shelves or counters that will be perfect. Just remember three things:

1. You need to be able to hang (or otherwise install) lights above the plants, and they need to hang from somewhere (this is why wire shelves are great).
2. The distance between a light and the top of a plant should be approximately two inches. Plants will start tiny and may reach a foot tall before you scurry in a panic to find another place to put them until it’s warm enough to plant them outside. This means that either the lights need to be adjustable or the plants need to be raised up by sitting on something when they’re small. It also means the shelves need to be an appropriate distance apart (but not necessarily all the same distance; remember you can shift trays around depending on stage of growth).
3. Everything must be waterproof. I probably should have put this into the location section, but I didn’t want to scare you. You can put down very tasteful plastic sheeting.

Let There Be Light

HGIC also has a page on lights for seed-starting. Here’s my additional advice:

• Get the best lights you can afford. If you decide to give up seed-starting later on (but give it at least two years!), you can always sell them. I have switched to T5s for half of my seed-starting arrangements, and they make a huge difference in size and growth rate of seedlings.
• LEDs are another possibility that is growing in popularity and availability. You don’t need the fancy blue and red ones for starting seedlings (those are for growing pot plants that need to flower); you can get white LED shoplights, which are slim and nice-looking and will do fine in the living room. They are pretty bright, so add “where they won’t shine in my eyes” to the location criteria. This is the best explanation I could find of why and how to choose LEDs.
• One of the reasons I bought my LED shoplights is that they are three feet long and thus fit my three-foot wire shelving unit. Trying to make four-foot lights fit a three-foot shelf is a geometric challenge. Same with two-foot lights, which I also acquired some of along the way.
• Buy a timer (the kind you use with lamps to fool burglars into thinking you’re not on vacation) and figure out how it works before you need it. Sixteen hours a day is minimum for healthy seedlings.
• Other items for your list: a power strip, and hooks and chains to hang the lights as needed.
• If you want even more detailed information about growing under lights, this podcast episode is useful.

Buy More Takeout

You will need to start your plants in something. More on that in a later post, but for now you might want to be saving your plastic takeout containers (rectangular is more efficient than round), yogurt pots, and salad clamshells. Or you can browse some good garden supply catalogs and websites to see what’s available. It may be possible to get away from plastic altogether (I’m trying) but not in a cheap or practical way yet, so focus on reuse and/or durability. Hint: if you feel you might be committed to this hobby, and you want standard-size seed-starting trays (usually 10”x20”), find the heavy-duty plastic ones that will last decades with care, rather than the cheap kind that crack after a couple of years of use. I asked for the former as a Christmas gift a few years ago (much better than perfume!). But I also know exactly how many pots of all the different volumes fit into a black rectangle that once held moo shu pork. Mini-trays like that also arrange themselves more flexibly under lights than large trays.

Let’s pick this discussion up in January! Meanwhile, start browsing those seed catalogs.

By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.