Ready to take your garden fate into your own hands? Time to sow some new seeds and welcome a new beginning. Germinating new plant seeds is a great way to explore new plant varieties or to revisit old favorite tried and true varieties. Starting these seeds indoors gives the grower a big advantage over their success from seed to harvest. Here is an easy way to start a flat of seeds indoors.
Preparation
First things first, we want to make sure all of our equipment is clean. So sterilize anything you may be reusing vs. buying new. Now make sure your trays have holes for drainage. Collect your grow medium and prepare it, if it is coco, or potting soil or similar media, make sure to moisten it before sowing seeds. You want the media to be damp/moist but not soaking wet. Time to fill the trays! Take handfuls of your planting media and fill the flat tray half the depth full. If using a cell insert in a flat tray, loosely fill the whole tray and press soil down in the cells. Gather your seeds. Time to plant.
Label & Plant
To avoid any confusion make sure you label all your trays or rows of trays so you know exactly what you are growing. In the flat tray half full of planting mix plant a seed every inch until the tray is full. For the cell tray, plant one seed in every cell. Now, take your planting mix and cover the tray. Time to water it in. It is always a good idea to water in your seeds to insure high germination rates. Make sure again your trays are labeled with variety planted, planting date and possibly transplant date. It’s nice to have goals in the garden.
Cover
Once you have the tray planted and watered in you will want to cover it with a plastic dome, plastic sheeting, or some kind of cover to help retain heat and moisture. Depending on what time of year and what variety of seed is used a heat mat may be necessary to guarantee success.
Watch Them Grow
After a few days the seeds should “crack”, germinate, and the dome/cover will be ready to take off. It is important to check the seedlings routinely for when they germinate because if left covered too long they could stretch for light or damp off and die. You will want to make sure you have a good light source to grow the seedlings under once they germinate. The stronger the seedling the stronger the mature plant.
