Seed starting made simple
Right.
It actually is pretty stupidly dead simple. Buy seeds, find/make a starter, plant, give light, and wait.
I probably should’ve started some of my seeds earlier, based on the incredible seedlings I’m already seeing in garden stores, but I waited until early March to get moving. I like to keep things pretty simple because I’m no plant guru, so I just went ahead and bought two Burpee seed start kits at Lowe’s ($19.99).
Any dummy can figure their way around these things, and I love how compact (and reusable!) they are. Most appealing, I was going to be out of town for a week and a half, so the self-watering aspect was the most attractive bit to me.
The kits come loaded with trays, watering mats, and soil pellets that expand once watered.
Last year, my seed starts were pretty diverse and I had trouble staying organized, so I’m going to stagger plantings this time around. I decided to do one container of tomatoes/tomatillos and another container of spinach, broccoli, and cauliflower.
Once you water, it only takes a few seconds for the pellets to expand. Now you’re ready to plant!
The trays come with covers to keep things moist. I bought the grow light off of Amazon last year. If you have sufficient light in your house, just use a window. But we live in a cave, so I resort to this. And then you wait.
PS: I bought a little $5 timer at the hardware store to cycle the lights on and off at 12-hour intervals because I’ve learned the hard way that it can be really hard to find reliable plant babysitters sometimes…
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