A New Venture: Seed Starting

Given the relatively short growing season in southern Wisconsin and the fact that starting my own plants from seed indoors has always seemed a little daunting, thus far I've been confined to growing the types plants available from local vendors and those that germinate quickly enough for me to directly sow them into the ground in the spring. When tomatoes and peppers were the prime plants that I had to purchase, this wasn't so bad. The selection of unusual and heirloom tomatoes and peppers in Madison is pretty good. But now that I've fallen in love with many annual flowers, it became a pricy proposition to include a lot of annuals into garden beds. Enter the grow light. My MGV friend Melissa decided she wanted one for her birthday last month and it was like a lightbulb went off in my head (no pun intended). Why couldn't I have a grow light in my basement too? Luckily, I have a very handy husband who promptly set off to Home Depot to build me a grow light. You can buy full kits, but like most things, you can build this yourself for less.

The last frost date in Madison is May 15th. So counting backwards, of the seeds that I bought, the seed packets that indicated they needed to be started earliest were Coleus, Verbena, and Angelonia. March 2nd was the day. Here's the rest of what I plan to plant in the next few weeks.

 

The grow light Adam built has 4 full UV spectrum florescent bulbs, indicated for plant use. They are 4' wide, so it fits just over two standard size trays. The trays I bought have 36 pots each, so I have a total of about 80 pots total. This should be plenty for me to get my feet wet with seed starting and grow a few things that  I otherwise couldn't have grown or would have to buy at $1-5 per plant. The grow light is on pulleys that allow me to raise and lower it to the desired height. Here is my system with the light raised.

 

 

Here are the first 25 pots I started. I have a plastic dome that goes over the seeds to keep the temperature warm. I misted the seeds with a smaller mister bottle I already had and I'll check the seeds every day to make sure they stay moist. The light is currently just above the plastic domes. After the seeds germinate, you take the plastic dome off and begin to raise the light to keep it 1-2" above the tops of the leaves.

I'll post again once seeds start to germinate. It's rather amazing how long some seeds take - up to a month in some cases.