There's so many different ways to start
seeds that it's impossible to say that there's a best. But there is my favorite and that's
what I'm showing you in today's video. Kevin Espiritu here from Epic Gardening, where it's my goal to help
you grow a greener thumb, which starts with starting
your own seeds. Now again, there's 1,000,001 ways to start seeds. You don't need to buy anything at all
to start seeds. There's very low budget, very creative methods. This method,
this product and this sort of technique, I really like for the small
to mid-scale gardener. Because unlike buying a tray that has 72 cells, a hundred cells, and you kind of have to either
plant similar things in that or just prick everything out - these
little micro cell trays, these sixers will fit in a
standard 1020 but they will also be modular. So if I
was to plant I don't know, spinach and then basil and
then lettuce right here - well basil is going to germinate way
slower than the spinach which will germinate slower than the lettuce. And so I can just pluck the
basil out when it's ready, pluck the lettuce out when it's ready. There's a couple other benefits on these
particular ones that I really like, which we're going to talk about in
a second. But without further ado, cultivate that Like button for an
Epic Seed Starting spring 2021 lesson. And let's get into the video. First things first let's talk about this
tray here, this mini tray. Remember, there's a lot of them over
here. Now, what is it? Well, it's a standard plastic but it's a black
recycled plastic and it's much more heavy duty. It's polypropylene. So I can squeeze this and it's
really not going to go anywhere. I've stood on these before and
nothing happened whatsoever. And what you can see also is you've got
these holes here on the back that my finger can actually get
through. So if I wanted to, I could pop out a tray or a
seedling very, very simply. Now you can even see my finger here in
this corner. So what are these? Well, these are side cuts that are cut in. There's four of them on each cell to
allow for better oxygen and better root development. So we're going to test
that out and see if that's true. Certainly seems to be. And then we
need to talk about the tray right here. So our tray is a standard
1020 size propagation tray, but it's an inch deep.
It's not two inches deep, which I personally like
a little bit better. And why I like it for this
application is first of all, 12 of these will fit
perfectly in the tray, which is really nice because then you
get a standard 72 cell propagation tray. But you can also bottom water, which I find to be a little more effective
for seedlings to prevent damping off, to prevent all these different
things. So you just plop these in. You're good to go. And again, when you germinate you can pop something
out and supplant it with something else, whatever the case may be. So let's
fill this up with soil and get going. For seed starting mix I think it makes
a lot of sense to just grab a bag mix. That way you don't make any mistakes
trying to concoct your own potion of soil. And this is what I would
recommend personally. This is Espoma Organic Seed Starter
mix. I've had fantastic results with it. Espoma, we've been working with
them for over two years now. Family owned company, great
people, great product. And that's why I'm
proud to work with them. They're the sponsor of today's video. So let's take a look at the mix and let's
fill up these trays. And then finally, I'm going to talk about
what I'm actually planting. We've got our tray and we have our
mix. So take a look at this mix. Very fine grain, got
some perlite in there. You can tell we've got some peat in
here and we've got some other additives. There's some mycorrhizal
fungal inoculants as well. But, I know I'm being a little sloppy here,
but just for the sake of example. You want to fill up your trays. When you fill it up at a larger scale you
can just dump it on top and then brush it off. But what I like to
do is just get it in here. You do want to make sure that
you don't leave it too fluffy. You can compact it a little bit and
then we're going to sow our seeds, moisten it up and get going
with the rest of the process. So here I like to give it a
little tap just to make sure that I got everything in there. So you can see it's a little bit
lower than I would want it to be. We'll top it off just a tiny
bit. And we're good to go. I'm going to fill up the rest of them. Next up we have the actual
seed sowing process. So let me start out with this
beautiful one right here. This is romanesco cauliflower which
will germinate much in the same way as a normal cauliflower, just ends up looking
a lot cooler. So the reason again, why I like this, is flexibility. I'm not going to plant 72 of let's
say one variety of lettuce or even one variety of crop. And so let me just
go ahead and do six. I'll do six here. You really don't even need to depress the
soil or depress the seed starting mix. Two to three seeds a hole,
just to guarantee germination. I have a full video on that. And what I'll do now is
just gently cover this up. Now there's two options. One that
I'm actually favoring these days, instead of depressing the
soil like I just showed you, another way you could do it is to just
sow the seed directly on top here. And then sprinkle more soil on
top and then water that all in. You can also just do something
like that to cover the rest of it. You don't have to brush the
hole over like this, right? You don't have to do that. I like
to pack it in just a little bit. You're not slamming it together. That's why you're choosing the right type
of seed starting mix so that you don't have to do that. But there you
go. We've got our broccoli in, two to three seeds a hole and then
we're going to moisten this all later. But let me just talk about some of the
other things I'm starting. For now, I'm going to put the label on top just
so I remember to label it later on and we know which ones we've done
already. Next up we've got spinach. Spinach is the quintessential
cool season crop. It works really well in
the spring and the fall. It does not work so well in the summer.
So you can get it in the summer. I would just say as long
as you have relatively mild
summer temperatures and you potentially shade it out,
you'll be in a good spot. But otherwise I really recommend just
growing tons of spinach in the spring and in the fall. And in many places it's going to
survive a nice little frosty frost as long as you cover it up to some degree. So two in on that per hole
and we'll keep on moving. Now here's a really fun one! This is actually from one of my
friends who got it from Thailand. So this is Kailan or Chinese broccoli. You eat it mostly for the leaves.
And I'm really excited! I mean, I eat this a lot in my Thai
food that I don't even cook. My friend cooks it and I eat
it. But it's really fantastic. And so I wanted a broccoli-style
green that I could eat instead of having to wait for the heading up, which of course I'll also probably
plant some, some heading up broccoli. But let's go ahead and get
some Kailan in the garden. Next up we have some basics. This is
going to be lettuce in this zone. Again, we're doing this for spring 2021.
So we're talking leafy greens, leafy greens, leafy greens. This is
lucid gem lettuce, really nice variety, interesting seeds. These seeds are a little bit fuzzy and
larger than your typical lettuce seed. Still a great one and still
one that will produce quite well in your garden. With lettuce what I've found is if you
don't have a spot that will support its growth very well, you can just
do a half sun and it'll be okay. So if you're in a climate
that's quite warm, like my own, I put this in a semi-shade garden
as we get closer towards the spring, the late spring and summer. Because it's going to need that heat
reduction to keep it from bolting. Even though typically lettuce is probably
going to want at least six hours of sun, you would want to favor
heat reduction over sun exposure, in my experience. Now we're
going to go with the flowers. I've been really having
a great time with cosmos, does quite well across almost
the entire year where I'm at. And so I'm going to sow some, this
is potentially slightly early here. This is candy stripe cosmos. You
can see why they name it that. This beautiful white to a sort of
magenta on the exterior of the leaf. Again, don't need to do anything fancy. Seed starting is really more about
not making mistakes than doing really fancy and crazy techniques.
Just surface sow these guys. We'll cover them up with a little
bit of soil and we'll be good to go. Cosmos is a relatively easy germinator.
I find a lot of beginner flower growers, myself included, we could have some struggles germinating
some of these flower seeds cause it's just quite different from
our annual vegetables. But I haven't had a bad time with it. Especially when you grow these easier
ones, like a cosmos, zinnia, a carnation, a bachelor button, a sunflower
- pretty easy germinator. Also a great microgreen crop. This
one here is great lakes lettuce. It's a good all around variety. I wouldn't say it's like a showstopper
as far as its appearance but it'll work in most climates and honestly
just sort of a staple to have in the garden. Sometimes I get the urge
to grow wild varieties, crazy looking varieties, et cetera. Sometimes you just want a work horse
that's going to perform well and great lakes lettuce is certainly one
of those. I like this method. I just like gently depress the soil
and, just to get the seed to adhere. And then I'll stick this in and
cover it up with a little bit more. I find that the germination
success goes slightly up that way. You guarantee you don't bury it too deep. I would say burying too deep is one of
the problems that a beginner seed starter will run into. Now here's an
interesting one. These are snow peas. So this is the mammoth melting
snow pea. A lot of people will say, you have to soak a pea seed
before you put it into the garden, before you sow it. It's
really not true. Peas, I mean, just think about it. If that was true they wouldn't do
that well naturally in the wild. They do perfectly fine. You do
not have to soak them. You can. It's really up to you.
Now this is a bigger seed. So I'm going to plant it at least one
pea width deep and then we'll cover. And just make sure you water it
in well. If you water it in well, you're not going to run into
an issue with germination. The reason people say that is because
the seed hull is quite thick and you want the water to penetrate to start
the germination process. But again, if you have the right seed starting mix, if you've buried it deeply and you've
watered it well, it'll still germinate. And it'll germinate almost as fast. I would say you might
be a day or so slower, but that was the day you spent
soaking it in the water anyways. So you're really not losing
too much time in my experience. And you're skipping an extra step that
just slows you down. As you can see, I've got five more trays to set up. I'm going to do those really quickly
and then let's move into the next step. Our seeds are in. It is
time to hydrate the mixture. So what you want to do here,
at least for me what I like, is I like to hit it with a mist spray
first, just to hydrate the top layer. Cause sometimes you'll find it might be
a little hard to rehydrate just at the start when it's bone dry.
And then I will come in, and this is the benefit
of the bottom watering, you can just fill the
bottom of the tray about maybe halfway or so. And what that'll do is that'll rehydrate
upwards through the holes in the bottom of each of these little micro trays.
Now you don't have to do that. You could just mist over
the top of the entire time, wait until the water starts
to run out of the bottom, drain off the excess and you'll be well
watered. But this is really key, I mean, you do want to make sure you water this
perfectly well because otherwise the germination process just isn't going
to start. So what you'll see here, see how it's a little bit glossy. You just want to wait for the water
to actually sink in which again, when you're just starting, can sometimes
take a little bit of time. I mean, I can just show you right
here. If we do this one, it looks like I just dumped a ton of
water on that, right? Like let me do that. It looks like I just absolutely blasted
it with water but even if I just move it to the side just slightly, I will see, and it might be a little hard to see here, but you'll see that it's not
really wet even halfway down. And so that's why you have
wait, water, wait, water. Makes sure it all hydrates up
and you'll be in a good spot. Now let's assume that
I've watered that up. After this what you'll want to do
is a humidity dome of some kind. Now I like this little guy right here.
It goes right over the top. Low pro. Can pull it off. Anything will really work but you just
want to lock in the moisture for awhile because it'll dry out if it's sitting
out here like this. And then boom, as soon as the seed germinates it
starts to dry out. It starts to die, you're in a bad spot. It's been a
few days now, more than a few days, probably about five or six. And I
just want to show you what's going on. So what we have here,
these are radish seedlings. You can see some really
beautiful root development here. These are actually what are called
root hairs. That is not a mold. You can tell because of the way that
they emanate out in sort of a cylindrical fashion out of the main taproot
there. But I mean, take a look. The root growth is really solid. I'm going to show you a couple of
different plants just so you can see. We've got red ursa kale
right over here. Again, really solid root development. You're seeing it also come out of these
side slits. These are a little young. So what I want to do is go outside
and also show you some of those. But just to touch on I mean, look
at that. That is just fantastic, fantastic development for these plants. Before we go outside and I show you some
more mature seedlings that I've grown in these very same trays, just a few little thoughts here when
you're starting seeds indoors. Number one, this guy right here, this is
an oscillating fan. I highly, highly recommend you
use something like this. This one is just a stand-up fan so it
can hit a couple different rows on this system right here. And the reason why is because you're
starting your seeds indoors in a windless environment. So not a lot
of environmental stressors. When you're blowing air over
them in a very gentle way, you're going to strengthen
up the stems a bit more. They're just going to be a little bit
more hardy so that when you do bring them outside and harden them off, they're going to stand a lot better chance
of surviving. And in fact, thriving. Now the other thing I will say is you
really want to make sure that you don't mess up your lighting
at this point in time. Now I've done two separate full videos
on seed starting misconceptions and seed starting process A to Z. So
check those out if you want to. But what I would say is general rule
of thumb on indoor seed starting is getting a light as CLOSE as
possible to your plants without burning the actual plant.
So in this particular case, I think I have two 42 watt
full spectrum white LEDs. I actually typically bump
it up just slightly closer. I'll bring this tray up to about
there or so because that's closer, full coverage and it's
not too hot for the plant. So especially at this young
stage, I will do that. I will typically leave it on
for at least 16 hours a day. Although you could get away with going
full 24 hours for these seedlings. It's really not a big deal. So if you boost them up with
a little bit of extra sun, in fact eight hours of
extra light per day, you can get them growing
a little bit faster. So maybe you started your seeds
late and you want to speed them up. That could be one way to help do that.
But that's enough said about the indoors. Let me show you kind of what's going on
outdoors and how easy it is to get them out of these trays. We're outside on the
makeshift seed starting array out here. And just one more time, take a look.
These are some lucid gem tomatoes, a little bit wet cause I just watered
them. But things are doing really well. Rat's tail radish again,
little wet but doing very well. So I want to show you how to take them
out of these trays now. In this case, we're going to do one of these tomatoes, which it's just not ready to go in the
ground yet but it's ready to get potted up as we call it into a new pot. And so what I'll do is I'll take this guy
right here and the big finger hole has been really, really nice for this
because as long as the soil is wet, you can just stick your finger
right in like that. And again, take a look at the root structure.
There's no pooling at the bottom, no circling or anything like that. And so now what I can do is just
slot it right up and we'll put it into, this is a mixture of
native soil and compost. Now here's the actual little trick
with tomatoes that I think most of you probably know. But what you want to do is actually go
quite a bit deeper than you normally would. So what I can do there is
I could bury it like that, right? And that's fine. It actually
will do perfectly fine that way. But the real hack to get better soil and better root adherence, and in fact even
grow more roots in the first place, is to bury it a lot deeper. Because
basically anywhere up to this point, roots are going to develop from,
and actually even above that point, but for the purposes of this
you wouldn't want to do that. So let's go ahead and do this.
We'll put it in somewhat low, just like that. See how now
the top matches roughly. And then we'll just fill around like this. And we're just potting this
up because it's still spring. These aren't going in the ground yet
but they do need a little bit more of a home to spread out and
develop a little further. So I'll just grab a little bit
more soil and we're good to go. And there we have it. A lucid gem tomato is
ready for its new home. What I'm going to do now is transplant
some of these into the actual beds. So we're here in what I'm
calling the back garden, hanging out in the medicinal
flower/herb bed and oh, I just saw a worm right there.
Nice! That's a good sign for life. But I've got another one
of the Epic six cell trays. We're going to pop out
some violas. And again, you can go straight into the
ground with these as well. The tomato is just a good
example for potting up. What I find is really cool though is
you have this almost commercial nursery level plug, which is what the nursery term is for
what you're looking at right here, because you don't even need to do much. You don't need to tease
the roots out or anything. You can just clear your space out right
here and just match it at the soil surface. In the case of this plant, we'll probably thin this slightly
and compress around the edges and voila. We have our viola in here. But what's cool is, for example let's say you were growing
lettuce as I'm transplanting in here. Say you were growing lettuce and you
wanted a decent amount of lettuce on a per week basis. Let's say six per week for
your family or something like that. Well then you could just plant
one of these trays every week on succession and have it rotating
through your seed starting system. So like the form factor of the tray for
the home gardener who actually wants to grow a decent amount of
food but isn't a farmer, is actually quite nice I find. And so that's been another reason why
these have become my favorite sort of system for starting seeds. So as this last viola goes
in I've got some thoughts, final thoughts on updating seed starting
for 2021. Let's rinse our tray out. Before we reset it. For another round, which I will show
you right now. One thing you have to do, whether you're starting seeds for the
first time or restarting seeds as a succession sow, is you need to make sure you disinfect
and sterilize your seed starting trays. And so the first thing I did was just
rinse it in my little makeshift water collection system over here,
get all the big debris out. So it looks pretty clean, but again, you want to make sure that
there's no problems going forward. So wash it with warm soapy
water in a bucket or a basin, which again is another reason why these
smaller form factor trays are nice because you can fit way more of them
in a smaller area for a small space gardener when you're washing
them out. After that, hit it with some hydrogen
peroxide, just a light spray, and then let that completely dry out. Then you can stack them up
and store them or reuse them. Now here's just something kind of
interesting I want to show you. This is the original sort of
industry standard so to speak. Six cell, right? Almost feels like paper. I mean,
it's so thin you can see through it. It's not going to last you more than
a season, if that honestly. Whereas, exact same size, you got
the slits in the side, you got the little bottom hole or
actually really kind of a big bottom hole. And then on top of that,
it's extremely solid. So I'm going to show you something.
Not very safe, don't follow me, but I'm not a very light human
being and I can completely stand on this tray with one foot. If
I can balance here, let me make sure. Yeah, there we go. So look
at this, look at that. No hands, no feet. That's just staying
there completely. So it will last you. Pretty much your entire life.
And that's why I like it. That's why it's my favorite new seed
starting system in 2021. It's BPA free, UV stabilized, recycled
plastic made in the USA. Again, this is not meant to be the full guide
for starting seeds, indoors and outdoors. I have a video on that already. It's sort of just an amended update
on a new system that I really like. So hopefully you enjoyed it. Good luck
in the garden, get starting seeds. And keep on growing.
