Firstly, you want something to grow your plants in. What you use is totally up to you, and how much you want to spend. You can buy ready-made products such as Jiffy peat pots, that most garden centers will be carrying this time of year. Some of these are all-in-ones that have the soil already included and measured out. If you are looking to cut that cost though, or want to be a little more hands on there are several things that work. For seedlings that will tolerate more handling at transplanting, you can use large milk cartons with the tops cut off. You can make several holes with seeds so that there are several plants all in the same container, or you can do a single plant of something like a melon or pumpkin that you will want to have all that space to itself.
**A note here! If you use large milk cartons and cut the tops off, save them! These can be used later, when you are expecting a cold night, to cover plants up. You simply place it over a small plant and it will help protect it from frost. You can also use the tops over the seedlings while they are growing to help keep in moisture and heat, even inside your house at night.
Other ideas for containers are:
- Making your own newspaper pots. These are biodegradable, and use things you have around the house. These may not be good for something you are going to start at the very beginning of the season though, as the pot is meant to break down. You can find a great tutorial on making them here: Newspaper pots
- Save and use toilet paper and paper towel tubes. I'm planning on doing this one! I'm going to cut the toilet paper tubes in half and the paper towel tubes into thirds. I'm going to put mine a plastic bin, then pack them with potting mix. The plastic bin will catch any drainage from watering.
- Re-use plastic containers that you would normally throw away. Things to think about: yogurt cups, large yogurt/sour cream/cheese/butter/margarine tubs, and the bottom 1/3 or so of milk cartons or jugs. These will need to be sanitized and have drainage holes poked in the bottom, but that's about it.
- Empty egg cartons. One plant per cell. Pretty easy.
- Commercially available seed flats or cell trays. A flat has no sections and work best for plants that can tolerate lots of handling, as you will eventually have to separate the seedlings out into bigger containers or into your garden. Cell trays have varying sized "cells" or sections that usually hold one plant per cell.
- Pots. You can use pots you already have! Large pots will hold more seedlings, small pots less or only one. You can also save and clean the pots and packs from your store-bought plants to use for starting seeds. Obviously you'll want to clean them before you use them, and clean them again after you transplant your seedlings before you use them for something else.
- Eggshells/ citrus peel halves. These should look like little bowls, but you can fill them with potting mix, start your seeds, and then put the whole thing in the ground when they are ready to go outside. One thing to note on these though, is that especially with the eggshells, it's very hard to make a drainage hole, so these probably wouldn't be the best to use at the very beginning of planting season. If the seeds are only going to be in there a couple of weeks though, knock yourself out.
Lights/lighting: Most seedlings will do fine if they are placed near a south or west-facing window that gets lots of natural daylight. If you are intending to grow your seedlings anywhere else (especially in your basement) you will want to look into using an artificial light source. Bad lighting will lead to bad plants, so consider this the most important item on the list, after you potting medium.
Heat- providing a heat source underneath of your seedlings will help them develop stronger, healthier, and overall better roots. Some ideas on this that I've seen include :commercially available seed heat mats, heat cables meant to be buried under sand or gravel with your seedlings in containers on top, or rope-type Christmas lights (make sure these are the regular type, not LEDs as the LEDs don't put out heat).
Other things to think about:
Fans- using a fan set on low, aimed at soil level of the plants (once they start to get a little bigger) will help increase air circulation and decrease diseases in your seedlings.
Dome- any clear -transluscent plastic that can be set over your seedlings will help keep in heat and moisture, which will help your seedlings grow initially. After they start to get bigger, you will want to take off the covering to help them get enough light, and prevent diseases.
Fertilizers- If you use a potting mix with a fertilizer included in it, you won't need this as soon. However, depending on when you start your plants, and if it's not included in your potting mix, eventually you are going to want to start using a fertilizer to help your plants keep growing once they get a good start.
For those of you that are interested, check out my Garden boards on Pinterest! The one labeled Gardens: Do It! has lots of links that I used in the post and my last one, plus more! They are listed in alphabetical order, so all of my gardening boards are right next to each other. Find me on Pinterest at www.pinterest.com/tengh/
If you don't know how Pinterest works, here's a quick brak-down for you. Pinterest is basically an online board of visual 'pins' or bookmarks that link back to other sources. You don't need an account to get to the pins, or the links though. Here's what you do: Click on a board you would like to look at; when you see a pin you are interested in, click on it. It should pull up in a larger size on your screen. Click on the picture in this larger format, and it should pull open a new tab in your browser going to the link for that pin. Hopefully that makes sense! I've tried to double-check most of my pins, just to make sure they actually go to something useful!
Let me know if you would like additional information on any of the above topics, and I'll be happy to share my stash of bookmarks! Happy planting!
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