Starting Crops from Seed: A Complete Grower's Guide

hey nerds farmer Jesse here so one way to make a garden either more profitable or just cheaper if you're a home Gardener is to do your own plant starts however it's also a great way to make farming and gardening way more expensive and timec consuming if you do it wrong how to start seeds the right way especially on a budget is what today's video will cover if you've been doing your own starts this video may also give you some insight into what's been going wrong so let's do it correctly there are a few places we could start with this topic but let's start with infrastructure Basics because well it's kind of hard to grow a healthy plant without a dedicated growing space and because I don't like to waste anyone's time if you have a structure or an area already set up you can skip to this time here to get more details on the actual production stuff trays starter mix beer pairings planting depths that sort of stuff okay so for infrastructure the space does not necessarily have to be overly complex or expensive or large or in some drier warmer climates even fully covered conversely some folks even grow all of their starts some of their starts or simply their microgreens entirely indoors I should say here before we really get into this video that if you're looking for my advice on growing indoors my advice is probably seek someone else's advice I frankly do not do a ton of indoor growing under lights at least no more than I absolutely have to and I generally try to avoid advising people on stuff that I don't know that much about maybe a hydroponic grower in your area will have a better recommendation for you so consult with them start there and scale up or down as necessary I did this video here last year on a very basic Greenhouse design but essentially you need a relatively strong structure that can be enclosed in glass or plastic that has access to water and is in a reasonably Sunny location if the only place you have to locate said Greenhouse is in a shady area you you may also have to consider adding a little supplemental lighting so electricity access or solar power or a generator I guess may also be key in fact I like having access to electricity of some form for a number of reasons for one air flow especially in the early spring when the greenhouse stays mostly closed can be an issue so I use a box van to move this air around a bit uh that will help prevent disease pressure on your plants you can also get fancy and install Vents and automatic fans and all sorts of gizmos but you probably don't need a ton of that stuff on a small scale uh box fan will do just fine for most of us uh just keep in mind that Beyond Disease Control if a greenhouse can't be ventilated properly it can easily cook or suffocate your plants which I assume is not your goal so if not using a fan or a vent you will need to be able to open the doors and sides enough to allow air to pass through uh the other reason I like having electricity available is heating for years I used a heat pad like this to boost the temperature for germination for plants starts though now I'm triing this heating cable which I'm not entirely in love with yet this particular brand so I will do more trials and find a good one for you in the future because this one is not particularly great the idea there being it's just a little cheaper to cover more ground with the heating cables so we'll see how that goes uh we'll talk about the importance of germination conditions also in a minute but the idea here for infrastructure is that you need a good warm humid area to germinate most everything you'll want to grow if the temperature fluctuates too much that will slow the production down if there's inadequate light that too can limit production because the sun is literally where plants get their energy are there ways to do this without electricity sure definitely but things like rocket heaters or using compost to heat a greenhouse come with other complications so make sure to really investigate those ideas before diving in fully because they can require a significant amount of management and thoughtful design I also used barrels of water for many years to help moderate heat but I suspect that coming out of the late winter the barrels actually kept the greenhouse cooler in our climate I didn't test that because I don't have two tunnels to compare to one another weirdly but it certainly seemed that way and I had another grower Lou JNS who you will remember from the living pathway Round Table we did recently also he told me he tried a similar thing in New York and felt the barrels kept his house cooler for longer in the spring so I have now dumped the water out of those barrels and I'm using them as kind of expensive tables yep speaking of tables there are a million ways to do greenhouse tables from mesh to bottom watering sort of flats uh I recommend starting with a simple structure that efficiently uses the space you have and won't fall or crumble under some weight because trays can get heavy when they get wet so there's a lot of weight on them uh on our 4 fths of an acre of production if we're not selling plant starts this 450t structure is mostly sufficient to fit all of our plant starts for the garden so if you're looking to build one maybe start with that as your Baseline cuz 450 ft on 4 fths of an acre is a good that's a good round number to deal with also I put old greenhouse plastic over the pallets you know I use the plastic so the roots aren't growing into the wood of the pallets needlessly sort of exhausting the plants so anyway your growing area can look like a rack in a basement or a greenhouse like mine or a sun room in your house or anything else but the space you have access to and your budget will dictate a lot of that and you can always up great I mean I tell myself every year that I'm going to do that it's good to have hope I guess now with the basic infrastructure out of the way here's what you need to think about for the actual plants first in terms of the trays there is no one right option some Growers use cell trays some wind strips others like myself use a lot of soil blocks some professional Growers also use Paper Pot transplanters there are even biodegradable pots for smaller scales or plastic cups I mean throughout the ages people have used all sorts of things to grow out seedlings uh let me go through the pros and cons of some of the more accessible and popular options starting with soil blocking because I'm a big soil blocking nerd first soil blocks are about exactly what they sound like they are blocks of soil that you can plant crops into but they are not for everyone a lot of professional Growers do not use them because they are labor intensive and use double or triple the amount of soil mix for me I learned to grow food with soil blocks 15 years ago and have used them ever since uh in my trials they make healthier larger starts than the average cell tray and the crops do at least slightly better and moreover because soil blocks use more soil mix I like to think of them as part of our fertility program I can use less compost on a bed because I'm using so much more soil mix per crop on the con side they are indeed more labor intensive and heavier and it's harder to carry say four trays of soil blocks than it is to carry four trays of cell trays at one time on a commercial scale I recommend the Swift blockers like this pausing here to let the b-roll do its thing or the standing blockers like these that are a little nicer on your back in terms of being able to stand straight up to use them but a little harder on the shoulders and elbows and hands on a garding scale hand blocker or two will do just fine we use those for years and still bust them out for certain applications as for cell tray I can't stand the flimsy ones that many other great Growers use with fear of sounding snobby about one method over another which I loathe when I catch myself doing that and I'm sorry when it happens uh those flimsy cheap cell trayes are just not my thing I end up just wasting them and I hate fiddling with them it's kind of hard to pop them just not my thing instead I prefer something a little bit more sturdy like these for instance sent to me by our buddy sea at all about the garden designed by Mr Charles doubting himself uh they're super sturdy easy and fast to load and easy to pop with a large hole at the bottom big enough for a finger for your average cell tray you really need a popper to relase release the cells efficiently so being able to do it with your fingers kind of nice especially on a garden scale on the pro side they are fast to load uh the cell trays light easy to carry around and a space efficient on the con side cells are harder to keep hydrated uh their transplant window is short meaning once they're ready you only have a few days before they will start to decline or become root bound and to that last Point cell trays can become root bound when left too long meaning that the roots will wrap around the soil block instead of growing large healthy transplants now there is also the option of wind strips which offer the speed and efficiency of cell trays with the air pruning effect of soil blocks from these little slats on the sides of the wind strips air pruning just meaning that the roots will sensense air and stop wrapping around the block so much and put its energy into growing a healthy plant the biggest Cons with wind strips is that they are not cheap uh they are made in a way that will ensure they last but it will be a sizable upfront cost uh they are also a little harder to keep moist like the blocks once you have them going with all that air around the bottom of the cells but you won't get the roots growing into the other blocks like you do with soil blocks because paper pots are a more complicated option I'm going to hold off on discussing them too much at the moment what I will say is the paper pot system is something that requires not only great Greenhouse management but soil and bed preparation as well as and also efficient irrigation before it can really be worthy of investment now the rules for germinating in paper pots are largely the same as germinating and anything except that your window for planting is a little shorter meaning you need to get them out much earlier than even cell trays uh moreover paper pots really require perfect germination and perfect soil prep otherwise you will have gaps in your plantings and may end up with dry seedlings in the field so I recommend nailing down your germination techniques before ever even considering paper pots hey so I'm editing this and I realized I kind of missed an important point and it drives me nuts when I realize that so uh I came out in the cold to tell you that uh one of the big reasons that people use cell trays or some of those like wind strips and that sort of stuff is that you can use faster seedar like Drop seeders or vacuum seedar that is a little harder with soil blocks although the Swift blocker potentially is going to make one of those but it makes it easier because all the blocks are more uniform than with the hand blocker or the standing blocker um and also I got a haircut it's relevant back to younger me uh anyway more on paper pots perhaps at another time for now let's move past trays and start talking soil mix or starter mix or potting soil whatever you want to call it but soil mix is the common term among Growers uh the type of soil mix you use is probably the most important element I will discuss today in terms of growing great starts yes you can technically make your own potting mix and as I've discussed in other videos I did that for years and then I try to professionally made mix from a good composter and I realized that I've been basically just wasting my time making my own mix the quality is just not the same not as consistent not as long lasting not even with my best mixes including like vermac cast and stuff just did not do as well now I use tilth soil out of Cleveland Ohio for my Sprout soil mix but there may be a composter closer to you that makes a great uh mix as well so a good soil mix is key perhaps Obviously good viable seed is a given you got to have good seed to have good germination using super old seeds or seeds not kept in ideal conditions can result in poor germination we keep all of our seeds in our walk-in cooler but temperature is less important than moisture fluctuations you don't want your seed getting moist and then dry and then moist and then dry over and over that will slowly wear it down I like my seed storage like I like my dad jokes dry and cool what if I become now every crop has its own individual needs in terms of germination but you don't have to memorize them wherever you bought that seed should provide the germination details that you need and in many cases they are listed right on the seed packet itself not all seeds have the same needs some seeds need to be covered to germinate and others like celery require some sunlight to germinate lettuce when buried too deeply will not germinate well whereas a Brasa seed like kale or broccoli or whatever germinates fine down to about a third of an inch or so and lettuce won't germinate well above 73° F or 23.8 de C so it's definitely good to pay attention to those little details when starting seeds after I seed a crop I usually cover everything but parsley and celery with a small amount of dry soil mix to help hold in moisture around the seed others may use uh what's called vermiculite which is a mineral that is extracted and then heated thus becoming a nice light popcorn material good for retaining moisture which is important in germination just just a little bit sprinkled over top of the seeds will do fine now some Growers will use a germination chamber to achieve perfect germination which is great uh they take an old freezer or some sort of sealed cabinet uh at a heating element like a light or a small heater plus a pan of water for humidity and a thermostat uh then they germinate all of their trays at the exact temperature that those seeds need I have no issues with germ Chambers and they may be really good idea for Paper Pot systems in particular where like I said you absolutely need as close to 100% germination as you can get otherwise you will have big gaps in the chain that would be a big waste of time and money for me I get pretty dang close to 100% germination without a germ chamber by just using a heat pad and covering the crops with row cover to retain moisture and I like that I don't have to move the crops around quite as much or concern myself as much with getting them out of the you know uh enclosed space because anytime you block out light like in a germ chamber or a stack of trays you have to watch those crops vigilantly because as soon as you see germination at all they need to be in sunlight so as not to get leggy once the crops have germinated getting them onto a table and in full but not suppressive sunlight is key that term legginess I mentioned doesn't just happen in no light environments if a seeding is not receiving sufficient light but is receiving adequate heat and moisture it will grow tall and lengthy I.E leggy which could make it a weaker crop in the ground a leggy lettuce for instance may still make a lettuce head but with a weaker stem that may not be able to support the plant very well which means that the plant will kind of lay on the ground and become susceptible to molds anyway once the crop has effectively germinated or at least you can see the germs starting uh get them separated on tables and like I said in as full of sunlight as you can probably still in your Greenhouse now keeping the crops moist is just about diligence uh with overhead watering you just have to be careful around crops like tomatoes whose leaves can be susceptible to fungal diseases it's not going to affect soil blocks you start out lightly before the plants germinate and then as the plants start to grow you don't have to worry about ruining your soil blocks with overhead watering bottom watering is also an option especially you know to avoid spraying the leaves um and depending on what trays you choose there is a bottom watering option or you can build your own bottom watering table basically you fill whatever tray you choose with enough water to saturate your seedlings instead of overhead watering and spraying the leaves thus you know making them more susceptible to disease like I said this is especially helpful with things like tomatoes and peppers but also with microgreens among other crops they should not sit in a pool of water though they need enough water to stay moist to the touch but not so much that the roots suffocate I also like having a bottom watering tray option on hand to inoculate our trays with beneficial microbes like with compost teas extracts Etc before they go into the field that's the fastest way to inoculate a field that I found because dragging around a heavy sprayer is well kind of a drag and it's slow anyway if you choose a good compost mix the shorter season crops like kale or lettuce or even broccoli should all be fine on fertility up until transplantation for longer seasoned stuff like tomatoes or Peppers or if you see yellowing in the greenhouse I recommend having a little fish hydrate like these from Neptune's Harvest there's a link in the show notes save you 5% on having those on hand to give them a nitrogen boost this will keep them happy enough to get them to the field also as longer seasoned crops get bigger can pot or ball them up uh to add a little bit more growing space for the roots and fertility for them to just keep munching on keep them watered any drying out will slow down the whole growing process uh check them by hand too just you know feel the block I doubt I have any b-roll of this but sometimes a slick cap of algae can belly the dryness of the soil block or cell block below it so so you'll get a little bit of algae on top it's not a big deal but it will sometimes keep the block from getting wet so you got to be mindful of that those may need bottom watering or extra watering last tidbit is just that as plants get bigger and more crowded ventilation will become Paramount keep the leaves as dry as possible and separate them a bit on trays where possible like if you have a bunch of tomatoes growing together like separate out the tomatoes pull the trays apart you don't want a massive Tomatoes cuz you're just not getting any ventilation right to the middle yeah and even spin the trays around to ensure that you're watering them evenly also another thing that you're going to did I just say the last thing was going to be the last thing also another thing you're going to see Growers do before their plants go out into the fields is Harden them off which means that plants get taken out of the greenhouse and put in direct sunlight for a few days before going into the field this will help toughen them up for the harsh real world that is the garden life we usually Harden crops off for a week or so uh though hardening off is less less of a concern in soil blocks in our experience than in cell trays and I don't exactly know why that is though I suspect just the root establishment element that makes soil blocks better at getting started in the garden soil and not having being wrapped up or anything for indoor grown plants you will absolutely need this transition period preferably in stages like a little bit of light at a time uh because the transition from artificial light to sunlight can be harsh anyway I have just talked for what feels like an hour so I hope it was helpful head up that if you'd like to see this Farm my farm in person this spring of 2024 we just posted our Field Day events geared around specific topics over at Ru draft Farmstead tocom hopefully those tickets are still available when I post this otherwise I'm kind of a jerk uh make sure to add your two cents or anything I missed in the comment section pick up a copy of the living soil handbook to support our work or hat or other merch at notil g.com become a patreon member and get discounts on seeds and boots and all sorts of stuff at patreon.com Growers paying $2 a month or $5 a month to get like save hundreds of dollars on seeds seems like a pretty sweet deal or just hit that super thanks button that works too otherwise like this video If you like this video If you're not subscribed to this channel make sure to hit the Subscribe button and if you are subscribed you're awesome thanks for watching we'll see you later [Music] bye woo it's chilly partner Jesse died by video

Channel: No-Till Growers

Views: 191,056

Keywords: starting seeds, how to start seeds, seed start mix, potting mix, potting soil, start plants, plant sales, growing plants, growing crops from seed, regenerative, organic, no till, no dig, small garden, gardening, market gardening

Id: tkqkqZF-V38

Length: 19min 42sec (1182 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 18 2024