Starting your seedlings

It seems like just last week we were picking the last of our tomatoes to save them from a freeze or frost last fall. But when I check the calendar, it's February or close to it. Our normal last frost where I live is around April 15 to April 20. You can DuckDuckGo "last frost in 63780." Replace my ZIP code with yours, and you will have the average. When you go back from the average last frost about 8 weeks, you should have the date to begin tomato seedlings. Tomatoes normally take about 8 to 9 weeks from planting the seed to being ready to transplant

When starting tomato seedlings, they will need a starter mix to plant the seeds in. Most any container will work, if it has holes in the bottom to allow excess water to drain. I like to dampen the starter mix before even putting it in the container. Make sure there is about an inch of starter mix in the container. I then plant my seeds right on the top of the damp starter mix. I then sprinkle some dry starter mix over the seeds with just enough to cover the seeds. Spritz or spray or mist some water on the starter to dampen the surface. You can then use some plastic wrap to help seal in the moisture.

You can place your container most anyplace that is about 75 to 80 degrees. I usually put my containers under two two-bulb fluorescent lights. Tomatoes usually germinate in 3 or 4 days, but may take longer. Keep the starter soil damp. Once the tomatoes come up, do your best to keep the fluorescent lights about an inch over the top of the new seedlings. Grow lights work, but so do regular florescent lights. Raise the lights as the seedlings grow keeping the distance at about one inch.

When the new tomato seedlings get to about 4 inches tall, I individually transplant them into larger containers. I use 3-inch plastic pots, but most anything will work. Styrofoam cups with holes in the bottom will work. Transplant the seedling so that about a third of the seedling is above the soil. Dampen the soil. Never get the soil wringing wet, just damp. I leave my tomato seedlings in this container till they go out in the garden. I use a good potting soil.

One year I had seedlings up pretty good and came out to my man cave/work room one morning and some of the seedlings were gone, even the roots. I figured it was a mouse, so set sticky strips from Aaron and mouse traps and nothing. Whatever it was ate good that spring. I finally let the radio run all night. They must not have liked country music.

The most important thing is to keep the lights within an inch of the seedlings. If you have a greenhouse, you can simply put your seedlings in the greenhouse. I'd strive to keep the seedlings above 60 degrees if possible. Tomatoes like heat. One other thing you can do is fertilize every week or two. I put a tablespoon of 8-56-9 in a gallon of water to use on my seedlings. Most fertilizer with a high middle number and low ends will work. If your plant starts to get spindly, most likely it isn't getting enough light. You can also put a fan on the plants to toughen them up, but the most important thing is light.

Pepper plants take longer than tomato plants from planting the seed to transplanting. Peppers take about 10 to 12 weeks from planting the seed to being ready for the garden. I plant my peppers in individual pots or cups. Kohlrabi takes seven to eight weeks. Okra takes about seven to eight weeks. Cabbage takes a good six to seven weeks or more. We buy our cabbage plants rather than start them. We also buy our broccoli plants. I simply can't start them for what I can buy them.

Zucchini is easy to start. I'd use a 12- to 16-ounce cup and almost fill it with damp starter mix. Make a little hole in the middle of the starter mix about 1/2-inch deep and plant your zucchini seed. Kind of cover the seed up. Now spritz the starter with water. Lay a piece of plastic wrap over the top to keep in the moisture and set it in a warm spot, 75 to 80 degrees. In a couple days they will come up. I would plan on planting my zucchini plants into the garden about two weeks after the last frost. Now figure from planting the seed till being ready to transplant is about 35 to 45 days so, and two to three weeks before the last frost is zucchini seed-starting time. Put the dates on your calendar in your phone. The best way to grow zucchini is to plant successive crops every two to three weeks. If your zucchini plants are about ready to bloom when you transplant them, you will have a jump on the bugs.

We start almost all our cucumbers almost exactly like the zucchini. You most likely can get by with 10- to 12-ounce cups. When you transplant cucumbers, you can expect to lose a quarter of them to various reasons. Plant extra cucumbers.

When we first moved out where we lived, I built a hot bed on the south side of one of our buildings. Do a search of hotbeds on DuckDuckGo. I'd say with a little bit of make do, you can have a working hotbed for almost nothing. It doesn't have to be pretty. All it has to do is work.

If you have questions email me. I may not know the answer but maybe we can figure it out.