Constant Harvest
Volume 4 Number 1 • April 2005
Here Comes the Sun — Peter Garnham
Constant Harvest • Volume 4 Number 1 • April 2005 Updated: 07/25/06
As this Newsletter arrives in your mailbox, I will be starting the first of my seeds for the coming summer growing season. (As I write, however, there’s two feet of snow outside.) Take this as a timely hint – if you haven’t already bought seeds, do it now. I got mine in December.
Local nurseries are carrying better seed brands now than they did a few years ago. Stay away from hardware store/chain store brands; the seeds are often poor quality. Look for Burpee, Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Cook’s Garden, Renee’s Garden, or Botanical Interests. Almost as easy, get their catalogs, or go to their Web sites, and make your choices.(See Gardening Central Seed Sources.)
Forget starting seeds on windowsills. All you get is leggy, weak plants that never recover. Find a spot to hang a 4-foot fluorescent fixture, holding two 40-watt tubes. Make one tube cool-white, the other warm-white. Hang the fixture on chains, so you can raise and lower it. Suspend it about three inches (Yes, three inches!) above the seed-starting mix. Set it on an automatic timer, so the lights are on about 16 hours a day. You’re ready to go.
I start seeds in cubes, made from starter mix in a gadget similar to a cookie press. You can also use peat pots, Jiffy pots, yogurt cups, or any container you choose that’s at least 1 inches deep and has a drainage hole or holes in the bottom. Buy a packaged seed-starting medium. Do not use any garden soil — it can contain organisms that will zap your baby seedlings.
I’m not great at following directions on products, but I do strongly advise you to read and follow the instructions on each seed packet. Some seeds need to go -inch deep. Others must lay on the surface, because they need light to germinate. Some like warmth; they will probably survive if they don’t get it, but they will do much better if you indulge them. Some are slow to germinate.
Water seeds and seedlings by standing their container in a few inches of water. Let the growing medium – remember, it’s not soil, and it sure ain’t dirt – absorb the moisture slowly. You’ll probably need to do this about twice a week. Avoid watering from above. Afterwards, let excess moisture drain off, then put the seedlings back under the lights. Keep the lights about three inches above the plants.
If you need to thin seedlings, don’t yank them out. This can fatally disturb the roots of neighboring seedlings. Instead, take a sharp-pointed pair of scissors, and snip off the unwanted seedlings at soil level. Carefully remove the snippings. Your first salad! (Joke. Maybe.)
Getting Started
Take a look at Gardening Central’s Seed Sources for a listing for reliable companies.
Peter Garnham is an Enterprise Farmer at EECO Farm, growing a variety of culinary herbs, and a Cornell Cooperative Extension Master Gardener. He lives in Amagansett.
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