How To Start All Your Seeds Outside | What To Expect

today we are going to be talking about seed starting but specifically how to successfully start your seeds outdoors in the elements and if you think you can't do it because you live somewhere where it's cold or gets snow it's not true you just can't do it year round but there's a great part of the Year where you can definitely start all your seeds outside and today I'm going to show you just how to do that before we talk about how to successfully start your seeds outside let's compare and contrast some of the main reasons why I've actually abandoned indoor seat starting strictly for outdoor seat starting the first one is actually space outside I have much more space I could lay my trays on the ground if I wanted to I could build little cheap leftover scrapwood tables or just put it all over the garden wherever I please whereas indoors if I bring in this tray of tomatoes and put it in the living room I'm going to get in trouble I just don't have the space inside to allow me to start piling up seedlings wherever I can so outside has really freed me up in how many plants I could actually start the other thing I really like about starting seeds outside is that I could get messy if I drop some soil it doesn't matter it's going to blow away it's going to compost it's all good but if I am indoors I have to be a little bit more careful about being messy and also you might have some like pest or fungus Nets and other kinds of issues outside I have none of those worries it's totally good the other thing I really appreciate about seeds turning outside is that I just have to rely on Mother Nature I don't have to worry about daisy chaining Outlets filled with heat mats grow lights fans timers everything in between to try to recreate all the natural wonder of outside indoors for my seats starting out here The Sun Shines the Wind Blows the only thing I have to be on top of is providing enough water for my seedlings so that they could Thrive so those are kind of the major reasons but the biggest one by far is that I never have to actually harden off a Seedling again it was my least favorite process by far is this whole dance where oh I have to bring this outside for like an hour bring it back inside for another couple hours do this whole little dance a little bit of shade a little less shade a little more sun a little less sun and eventually i' put my tomato out there and it would just die because it got stunted cuz I didn't Harden it off properly out here doesn't matter at any point in the life cycle of these plants I could simply take that seedling put it in my garden I'll do just fine I do not need to harden it off cuz it's already growing in the same environment so those are the major reasons I personally like to start my seeds Outdoors I've been doing it for years now recently I did get a greenhouse which is kind of a half and half between indoor and outdoor seed starting but for every year before that I've done everything every single one of my seat startings outside on a table just like this I'm over here by my chicken run to demonstrate actually the worst place in my yard for starting seeds that is because there is not enough light here the house over here blocks a majority of the Sun for a large part of the day and also this gate right here is where all the wind blows through my yard and at night it could be pretty chilly Coastal wind so when you're thinking about your location you really want to think about somewhere where you get cool Sun as much sun as possible that is what your seedlings are going to experience when you PL them out out remember not worry about hardening off we're trying to grow our seedlings in the same place where our actual plants will eventually exist the other thing I wanted to highlight about this location is that wind wind it turns out is actually quite the demon when it comes to seed starting wind not only dries the surface of your soil which can affect your germination it also strips a lot of moisture from the leaves of your plant and now if you're thinking oh but these are going outside anyway where it is windy that is true but they're going into either a container the Earth and that just has way more access to water and nutrients than your little sixpack of seed L speaking of wind you also want to make sure you're not somewhere where there is zero wind no wind whatsoever even in a greenhouse I have run a fan because if you don't have wind your plants are not going to get any access to motion and if they don't get access to motion like this they're going to be very floppy and weak and when you put them out in your garden they're going to be very pathetic at the beginning so you don't want strong wind at night but you want a little bit of Breeze at the very least to make sure that your plants do get some of that strengthening that the butes let's make that even a little bit more simple if you live somewhere where you have a super windy portion of your yard don't put your ceilings there and you'll do just fine anywhere else will be totally good but the super windy part is probably not going to be ideal you can put a little Wind Block like piece of wood maybe a tree right in front of your seedling area and it'll do just fine as well when it comes to choosing light if you have to choose between somewhere that gets Morning Light versus afternoon light you're always going to want morning light for a variety of reasons first it helps ease your seedlings into the day day whether that's a cold day a warm day or whatever everything in between that morning light is very gentle and it really helps wake up your seedlings and if it's a cold night say the night before then that soil is going to warm up a little bit faster and the plants are going to do much better whereas late afternoon sun can be very harsh very warm very drying and the plants don't like it as much as something like a nice morning sun so choose somewhere that gets Morning Sun over afternoon sun or really anything that gets less afternoon sun is going to be more ideal for seed starting in general everything else totally good there is something however that does matter and that is the location that you're putting your seedlings in should be as level as you could possibly get it and I'll show you exactly why in a moment here now take this forfeit level I'm going to go ahead and put it on oh let's just put it on the back of this tray what I see over here is that the Bubble Level is exactly in the middle or at least pretty close to it now why does that matter well it matters because I reach over here and grab my hose and put water in the bottom of this tray I want to make sure that every single one of these seedlings is getting equal access to water if this tray was actually tipped over to the right like this and most of the water was sing down here this tray is never going to get enough water and these seedlings are not going to be very happy so just like indoors when you're starting outside make sure you have a nice level surface cuz that's going to dictate how well you're actually Watering your plants of course there are some advantages to starting your seeds indoors the first one is really going to be consistency this is one that I had started outside it did germinate but the germination is a little bit spotty compared to this guy here which was started indoors consistency is a little bit harder to get outside because we are actually dealing with Mother Nature to provide most of our needs whether that's Sun wind temperature everything in between we're just going with whatever happens outside whereas indoors there's consistent lighting consistent heat consistent wind everything like that is consistent so you're going to get probably better germination and more repeatable predictable consistent results but there are ways around it and we're going to talk about that in the setup of our actual successful outdoor seed starting so just keep in mind it's not all sun and Roses it is a lot of sun but sometimes there are cloudy days and it's just not going to be quite as consistent as you might expect so now we know we might have less predictable results outside and one of the things that can contribute to that is actually rain if it rains and your sea trays are left out in the elements unprotected and the tray gets full of water that could lead to your seedlings being drowned or even your seeds actually washing away in heavy rains so what do you do in those situations well you have a couple options you could build a simple structure over your seed starting table with like one of those plastic clear roofing materials it wouldn't cost you that much and it would protect it from the rain one thing that I do here in San Diego because it just simply doesn't rain that much and when it does we don't get a lot of water is if I know it's going to rain I'll simply take my trays like this and take them out of their seed starting bottom tray so now this can't flood with water and drown on the seedlings they will probably get a little bit more water than they want but any extra water should be able to freely drain away the other thing that I've done in the past is say I have a tray like this I'll take this and I'll actually just go ahead and place it underneath my table just like that the table will block most of the rain and now the seedlings won't actually drown in that rainstorm one of the things about seed starting outside is that you can use your surroundings to your advantage for example right now I'm underneath the shade of my giant citrus tree and if it's a really hot day I'm simply going to take my seedlings and put it in this dappled Sun instead of leaving it somewhere out there like full sun this is a trick I use all the time when I'm trying to say germinate lettuce in the summertime because lettuce will not germinate in warm soil so think about your yard and use it to your advantage there are times where you're going to have to move your setup a little bit but the beauty is that as long as you have trays it's very easy to move the things that need to be moved where they need to go and the rest could stay there like let's say you have a bunch of tomatoes and peppers well they're going to do just fine in that sun so let's talk about how to actually set up your soil for Success when you are starting outside I always start with a high quality potting mix in this case I'm using the Fox Farms ocean forest soil and what I like to do is actually sift it so this is/ quarter inch hardware cloth that I've created this little sifter out of and let me show you exactly why we're sifting it and how I like to actually adjust this Bland depending on what time of year it is all I'm going to do is just push majority of the soil through just like this the reason we sift our soil is cuz we want to get rid of of all these big chunks of wood rocks massive prite everything in between all of that is just going to hinder your seed starting ability but what we have left here is actually a soil that has much more nutrients than say something like a standard seed starting mix this does have a little bit of fertilizer in it which is totally fine now this as is is ready to go for almost the entire year but let's say you're going in the winter time where it's a little bit cooler there's not as much of apparation what do you do in that case well in that case I might actually cut in a little bit of extra prolite the prolite is going to help increase the drainage of the soil and that's going to ensure that even though it's cold outside maybe it's been cloudy for weeks and I overwatered my seedlings one day well the chances of them getting overwatered when there's more prolite in the soil it's going to be much lower now say summer time comes and the plants are very hot they're drying out very rapidly what you do instead is you cut in a little bit of compost into this mix so it might have less perlite less drainage overall but it's going to have better water retention which is perfect for those hot days that is how I like to modulate my soil depending on the season and that's always worked well for me when starting my seeds outside as I mentioned earlier putting extra seeds is often a good idea when starting Outdoors now of course I can't understand the fact that seeds aren't free but most seeds that you are planting in your garden are probably coming in packs of 200 for like two to $3 so instead of putting one seed maybe put three or four it's not going to entirely break break your budget on your seeds and if anything it'll help you cycle through the seeds and keep them fresher which always increases germination now when it comes to bigger seeds like say something like a cucumber this tasty green here for example when you are starting them you can get away with putting them in a bigger container we're not limited by the amount of space we have out here well at least I'm not in my context outside so if I wanted to start a cucumber I'm not going to start in a smaller cell I'm just going to go ahead and put them in a bigger container just like this one here so what I'm going to do is go in with one seed of each in this case I am only doing one seed because it is a more specialized seed it's $429 for 12 seeds and it's also a larger seed larger seed is always going to be more dependable it could handle a little bit less ideal conditions because the seed is so big the chances of it succeeding are always going to be higher now on the flip side when I'm coming in here with my let's say these bright light Cosmos it's $2 for a gram of seed if it's coming by the gram you know you're getting quite a lot of seed here in this case probably well over 100 so what I'm going to do here is go ahead and take these seeds I'm going to put two to three in each one of these cells and that way all I really need in the end is three seeds and I'll or sorry one seed to succeed and I'll have plenty of Cosmos in my garden it's really as simple as that when it's hotter you could put a little bit more compost in your soil a little bit more water retention in that sense when it's colder like let's say early spring or as you're approaching winter might put a little bit more prolite to increase the drainage and stop these seeds from being able to drown in those cooler months when it might also be a little bit wetter that's kind of it when it comes to actually planting out your seeds that's all you really need to know so now let's move on to the next topic while we're on the topic of actually starting the seeds outside let's level some expectations here right here this tray in front of view was started outside and it was started about 3 weeks ago and when I looked at the weather station the lowest temperature that they've experienced is maybe in the mid to upper 40s the majority of the time it was been in the low 50s or so so once you get into that temperature range even things like tomatoes will germinate right here I have tomatoes as proof just to speak to that but it's just going to take a little bit longer now to speed things up for some of those warm weather crops whether it's Tomatoes but especially things like Peppers okra eggplant that really really thrive on the heat there are ways to supplement heat outside and it doesn't have to be expensive in the past I actually had a little popup Greenhouse literally right here that cost me about 20 or 30 bucks from Aldi but at that price range it was only worth 2030 bucks and it only lasted one year before all the plastic degraded and I had a micr plastic situation in my Gardens but I want to clear this table really quick and show you something that people have been doing for hundreds of years that isn't that difficult even a less experienced Builder can put something like this together I'm also bringing out these Tomatoes which were in the greenhouse house and we're going to talk about those in a moment what you're seeing right here is a cold frame this is an ancient technology people like I said have been using for hundreds of years it could be built out of a variety of materials I'll even include a little Link in the description below showing you 20 different builds that we've had in our blog for a while now the idea behind it is that you're creating a miniature Greenhouse instead of having to go through the whole process of getting a giant Greenhouse you can build a controlled space using a sheet of plexiglass a sheet of real glass which oddly enough is actually cheaper and it's a simple structure basically a box with a 45° slant on it what this does is it captures the sun all you have to do is Orient it so it's facing towards the South it'll capture the sun all throughout the day and the only thing you really have to do is make sure that you pop it open on the hottest of days to let a little bit of that extra heat out because this is actually a greenhouse at this point now what I've done is I've taken a little bit more advanced solution I got one of these little Greenhouse wax piston cylinders when it gets hot this will automatically open on its own and it makes it fully automated this whole build itself I think it cost me about $60 to build and this is going to last me much longer than that cheap plastic Greenhouse that I had before so a great solution to start off some of those heat loving plants if you are so inclined and you want to add a little bit of extra heat now let's go back to these Tomatoes these are the exact same Tomatoes they were all started at the exact same time the only difference is that the tray up here I left out side fully once I potted it up and this tray I've been keeping in my Greenhouse the whole time I have to admit the ones that were in the greenhouse do look a lot better now do they look like substantially better I'd say they probably look about 30% better these are a little bit darker green they've gotten a little bit bigger over that time because they've had more access to a perfect environment but my point here is to show you that even if you don't have access to that these tomatoes are totally fine they're going to go in the ground and they're probably going to perform the exact same as these even though they don't look quite as Stellar so indoor versus outdoor seat starting in the end it's basically the same thing with some caveats along the way your indoor seat starting is going to have more consistent germination but we get around that by overseeding our cells and also changing our soil during the summer time versus winter time everything like that is adaptable but the one thing that isn't is that they're probably going to always grow a little bit slower when they are outside now in exchange you do get to skip the hardening off process which for for me like I mentioned earlier is a huge win when it comes to dealing with the elements or pest pressure there are solutions to it it all depends on your region for me one that I might take into account is a cold frame in the winter time when I'm starting my peppers and tomatoes outside if I know I have a bird problem I might build netting around my table and if I live somewhere that gets lots of rain well I'm going to be putting a clear roof on that seedling table beyond that everything else is basically the same you just get all the freedom of starting outside versus keeping them indoors where in my opinion it's more of a chore rather than a fun activity to go alongside your gardening so with that being said if I missed anything please ask your questions in the comments it is basically the same thing but there are a couple little things that you have to worry about along the way

Channel: Jacques in the Garden

Views: 44,382

Keywords: jacques in the garden, epic gardening, urban gardening, compost, backyard gardening, urban homestead, low-till gardening, organic gardening, home garden, home gardening, gardening at home, seed starting, starting seeds outdoors, hot to start seeds outside, how to start seeds outdoors

Id: EWFjA7DgmtQ

Length: 16min 44sec (1004 seconds)

Published: Sun Mar 24 2024