Category: Seeds

You’ve started your seeds (3 sources to buy your vegetable seeds), and didn’t label them…

…there’s no need to because you know you’ll remember.

Wrong.

We all tell ourselves that and sure enough we always forget what we planted and when we started them.

Label your seedlings. You think you are going to remember what you planted where, but you won’t. — Tweet This

That’s why this is one of my basic seed starting tips for beginners.

On the labels you can write as little or as much information that you’ll like such as the exact type of seed, date started and approximate time to germination.

Now I’ll share five (5) options to allow you to easily label and identify your seeds. These will range from the simple to a bit more fancy.

4 Ways to Label Your Seedlings

1. Rocks

Rocks are simple and inexpensive ways to label your seedlings and then use in your garden. I’ve used these on my balcony garden as a garden marker.

Collect the rocks from your own yard or “borrow” them from your neighbors. To decorate them, you can simply write on them or decorate them to make them more stylish. The choice is yours.

When writing the name of the seed on the rock, I’d recommend being a bit more generic because you can’t erase what’s on the rock and want to be able to use it again.

2. Popsicle Sticks

You can get popsicle sticks from your local craft store in bulk at a cheap rate.

Much like the rocks, you can be as simple or as fancy as you’d like. They can easily be slipped into the soil to label the seedlings.

3. Clothes Pins

This is an idea that I got from Becky at EatDrinkBetter. She used clothes pins to label her seedlings.

4. Plant Label Sets

If you just want to buy something and have it done for you already, then you can buy plant label sets from an online garden supply company such as The Greenhouse Catalog (a sponsor of mine).

These come in a many designs from the simple plain white to fancier designs with pictures and other information.

Your Turn

With these four options, you have plenty of choices to make sure that your seedlings are labeled this year. I’ll be sharing other creative ways to label your seedlings in the future, so be sure to subscribe to keep up to date.

What are you going to use to label your seedlings?

Image courtesy of Circulating on Flickr

The strangest posts wind up causing some controversy.

It doesn’t make sense to me.

When I wrote about why having an emergency seed bank is important, I didn’t quite get the reaction that I’d expect.

I received emails, Facebook comments and Tweets saying that I couldn’t be more wrong about storing the seeds and that freezing them was a horrible idea.

I’ll admit that I have never frozen seeds before and then used them. It is a recommendation that I’ve seen countless time before.

So I did a bit of research and here’s some excerpts from sites:

Last year we planted a variety of different seeds that we had put in the freezer over 10 years ago and forgotten about and they came up just fine. They were just in ziplock bags. — via Survivalist Boards

Seeds dried to a low moisture content with silica gel and then stored in a freezer can usually retain viability for many years. — via HowToSaveSeeds.com

Freezing seeds will put the embryo into suspended animation reducing its need to consume the sugars that are encased in the seed. This increases it’s storage life immensely… — via Ready Nutrition

Takeaways for Storing Your Seeds in the Freezer

The main takeaways that I got in my research were the following:

• Make sure the seeds are dry when placed in the freezer. Using a silica gel pack can help with this.

• Put the seeds in an airtight container. This can be a mason jar or even a ziplock bag. Vacuum sealing works well too.

• Allow the seeds to thaw before planting. These are for long-term storage, but good to keep this tip in mind.

How do you store your seeds for the short or long-term?

Get 10% Off your Vegetable Seed Purchase Online from SeedsNow.com

All you have to do is click here and use the discount code URBAN10 to get 10% off.

Some believe that one of the best investments to currently make is in an emergency seed bank.

With everything that is going on with the global economy and food system, it’s hard to argue.

What would happen if our food supply was cut-off? or the price of food sky rockets too high?

Yes, it is important to have the canned goods and non-perishables, but what happens when they run out and the supermarket shelves are dry?

That’s where having an emergency seed bank helps out. I’m not getting all sensationalistic and saying it’s going to happen today or in the near future, but like any other emergency kit, it’s best to be prepared.

How to use your emergency seed bank

There are two ways that you can use your bank:

• Keeping it in storage for emergencies. One of the best places to store them is in the freezer.

• Start your garden. This way you can start to grow your food and build up the seed bank by saving your seeds.

Where to buy a seed bank?

It’s really important you buy a quality seed bank from a place that sells good seed.  SeedsNow.com has a huge selection of seed banks and best of all their seeds are all 100% NON-GMO and Heirloom varieties.  If you don’t know what NON-GMO or heirloom is – don’t worry – that’s the good stuff you’re looking for in a seed bank.

Here’s a couple options worth checking out:

• MEGA SEED BANK w/55 seed varieties
• Herbal Medicine Seed Bank
• Fall/Winter Seed Bank
• Spring/Summer Seed Bank
• Homestead Seed Bank

Have you thought about getting an emergency seed bank?

It hasn’t been a great week for my balcony garden. First the oak green leaf container was infested with little black eggs that I later learned was cabbage worm crap. Now my tomato seeds that were doing so well have all died.

I had each of them planted in a plastic strawberry container. Last weekend I went away from Friday to Sunday. When I left on Friday morning, the seeds were doing well. Three of the four seed starter pots were about 2-3 inches and had some leaves.

Before leaving, I watered them and decided to leave them outside. Upon my return, they were all dead. The next time I go away, I’m not sure if I should leave them inside or what to do. I’ll have to figga that out.

Fern from Life on the Balcony wrote a post that this reminded me of titled, “What Gardening Has Taught Me About Life.” Check it out, some great insight from Fern and by people who left comments.

What this has taught me is that I won’t let the setbacks in life stop me. I haven’t had the best of luck with seeds so far, but I’m learning and am now just one step closer to getting it right.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3HpJXvH0Lg

Yes it might sound obvious, but when you start your seeds make sure that you have a container to transplant them into. I didn’t and had a tray of dead seedlings. This could very well be one of the biggest gardening mistakes that I’ve made.

Last week the seedlings were slanting a bit. This week they are all dead.

A few of the pots were popped open and the roots appeared to be a bit compact causing their demise.

The toilet paper roll seed starter pots are so shallow and don’t allow for much root expansion. There is about 1/2″ of soil at most in each one.

This is not to say that these seed starter pots aren’t good to use. What I am saying is that if you are going to use them to make sure that you have containers or pots readily available to put them in or something larger to transplant them into before putting outdoors.

All is not lost. The dead seedlings were tossed into my worm composter and will eventually make their way back into my urban gardens.

Point your finger and laugh, but I’m sure you’ve made your own obvious mistakes in starting your seeds. Let’s hear them.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vA91cqTZkdE

It’s been a little over a week since I started the experiment with planting the same set of seeds indoors and outdoors to see which would do better.

There were two sets of four different kinds of seeds that were planted in toilet paper roll seed starter pots. They were leaf lettuce, basil, sunflowers and calendula.

At this point, the seeds that were started indoors are performing a million times better. A million times in the sense that they’ve actually sprouted as opposed to the ones outdoors that have nothing to show.

The weather outside has been in the high 60s at night and 50s during the evening. It possibly could’ve dipped down into the 40s.

The carrot and mesclun seeds that were planted outdoors in the containers are starting to show sprouts as well. There are some green carrot tops poking their way through the soil and same for the mesclun.

Yes, the indoor seeds have begun to sprout, but they are leaning and stretching towards the sunlight since they are sitting in an east facing window that only gets the morning sun. I am pretty sure that this should be a concern because they are leaning and looking stretched out.

I’m going to start putting them outdoors for a few hours a day to get them more in the direct sunlight to hopefully straighten them out some. I really don’t want to have to buy grow lights. What do you think?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4amGwb9CcOg

After you are done with your coconut, hollow it out out and use it to plant vegetables with shallow roots in them such as lettuces and other greens.

Much like the toilet paper roll seed starter pots, these are the great price of free.

What you’ll need to get your coconut shell container made:
• Coconut shell
• Potting mix
• Seeds
• Spray bottle filled with water
• Drill with 1/4″ bit

How to make a coconut shell container:
• Drill 2-3holes in the bottom of the shell. Drill from the inside of the shell.
• Fill up with potting mix.
• Dig a small 1/4″ deep hole in the middle of the soil and drop in your seeds.
• Spray with some water and cover up with soil.
• Spray down again and place in the sunlight.

[flickrset id=”72157623948778573″ thumbnail=”square” overlay=”true” size=”medium”]

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8W6F8V_Obxc

Now that I have some seeds directly sown and another seed experiment going on, I am trying to figure out which tomato seeds to start for my balcony garden.

I have 7 packets that I received for free from WinterSown.org. You just need to fill out the form, send them a SASE and they’ll send you free seeds. Nice.

I learned on my fire escape that just because they are cherry tomatoes doesn’t mean it’s going to be a small plant. I don’t want to have a tomato tree on the balcony, but would like to grow some tomatoes.

A plant that grows to be about three to four feet tall would be great. I know that there are determinate and indeterminate plants, but am not sure of the exact difference between the two. Help identifying which seeds to start for the balcony would be appreciated.

I have the following seed packets:
• Principe Borghese – determinate
• Silvery fir tree – determinate
• Old German – indeterminate
• Pondersoa red – indeterminate
• Giant Belgium – indeterminate
• Costoluto Genovese – indeterminate
• Red pear – indeterminate

My guess is that one of the determinate varieties would be best. It would also help if these people spoke in English and just said, “plant grows to approximately x feet tall.”

Which do you think I should start for the balcony garden?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dD9nHUIMng

Last week I direct sowed carrots and mesclun lettuce into containers on my balcony garden. I’m not seeing anything coming up on them yet.

This week, I’m experimenting with starting seeds indoors and outdoors to see which light works better. I don’t have any self-watering containers to direct sow into, but I have seeds. So why not get some started?

For this test, I’m starting a leaf lettuce blend, basil and also some of the flower seeds that I’m going to grow – sunflower and calendula.

I made seed starter pots using toilet paper rolls. For each of the seeds, two were planted indoors by a window and the other two were planted on the balcony.

An old pie tin is being used to hold the pots indoors and the cover is serving as the greenhouse. For the outdoor seeds, a long strawberry box is being used to hold the toilet paper rolls and a cut-up ziploc bag as the greenhouse.

My apartment is east facing and gets about 4-6 hours of direct morning sunlight. It’s been in the 60-70s during the day and in the 50s at night.

Which do you think is going to work better the indoor or outdoor sets?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=676qYQOEuUs

Now that I have my LA balcony garden started, I want to work on starting some seeds.

There are about 12 packets or so that I’d like to get started of lettuces, kale, beets, carrots, tomatoes and some herbs. Since the weather is warm here in LA, I’m wondering whether it will be better to direct sow the seeds into the containers or to still start them indoors?

I have accumulated toilet paper rolls, newspaper, plastic strawberry containers and some other things to use to start seeds indoors.

The past few nights it’s reached down into the 40s, but it’s mostly at least 50 degrees at night and 70s during the day. Which I would think to be warm enough temps to direct sow into the containers.

There is a lot of space for more self-watering containers on the balcony that I’d like to get planted in. For that reason I think that it’d be better to start the seeds indoors, so I can have veggies growing outside while the seeds are doing their thing indoors.

Then I can with succession planting or whatever it’s called when they are ready to be placed outside.

What’s your recommendation? Start the seeds indoors or direct sow into the containers?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87c1V7yh4xE

The final question that I have before starting my vegetable seeds is do they require direct sunlight? Can they get by with indirect sunlight?

I could easily put them out on my window garden. It gets a few hours of indirect sunlight a day, but no direct sunlight.

The fire escape is an option as well, but having to get into and out of it everyday would be a pain since it’s in my roommate’s room.

I’d have go through his room to set them out each morning, then bring them in each night. My preference would be to avoid that.

I’ll likely experiment and put some on the window garden and some on the fire escape.

Do you think the indirect sunlight of the window garden enough? Is there somewhere else that I could put them?

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EPPLqJq4CLY

An easy way to start your seeds indoors is to use toilet paper or paper towel rolls.

There are two advantages of using toilet paper rolls. The first is that they are free. It’s likely that you already have both items available in your apartment. Ain’t no better price than free. The other is that that they can be put directly into the soil when transplanted because the cardboard will biodegrade into the soil.

What you’ll need to get your toilet paper roll seed starters made:
• Toilet paper or paper towel roll
• Razor
• Scissors
• Duct tape

How to make a seed starter pot using a toilet paper roll:
• Cut the toilet paper roll in half using your razor and scissors.
• Take one of the halves and cut four slits about 3/4″-1″ or so up the roll.
• Fold the toilet paper roll into each other to form the bottom of the seed starter pot.
• Use tape to secure the bottom.
• To fill put your soil inside, followed by your seed and cover with more soil.

After a few weeks, when the seed is ready to be transplanted into the soil, you can undo the bottom of the toilet paper roll and stick the whole thing into the soil. The toilet paper roll will biodegrade into the soil.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7-nnzX-Cd0I