Seed Starting at Blackberry Blossom FarmSeed Starting Our Way We've been gardening for most of our lives, mostly backyard vegetables, nothing fancy, nothing too big. When we moved to Blackberry Blossom in 1999, we knew we'd be ramping up our garden space to include as much as we could grow (sanely) and try to preserve much of what we grew for year round consumption. This was no easy task, and if you've read any of our other web pages, you'll get the bigger story, gardening in rocks and clay was a huge challenge.
This is a good picture of one of the many piles of rocks we've moved from all over the farm. Check out our Homemade Farm Equipment page for Ed's rock mover invention. Pretty slick for those really big rocks. Okay, back to Seed Starting...
Start them off right, grow them with less effort Because seeds need very fine starting medium, special nutritional requirements, and a texture that holds moisture but not too much, we've found the perfect starting soil. There are two parts to this puzzle. The medium in which you place the seeds and the container in which you place the medium. Of course the simplest method is to wait until the growing bed or garden soil warms up enough and plant the seeds directly where the plant will grow. On our farm the last frost date is mid April and we have seen snow falls after that. Waiting for the earth to warm takes a real chunk out of our growing season. So, like most other people, we plant our seeds early in hopes of having plants to transplant when the beds are ready.
Bags of ingredients which will make our seed starting medium We have adopted the method prescribed by Eliot Coleman in his book “The New Organic Grower” The mix we use is straight out of his book. This man has done more research and testing than I could ever hope to do, so why try to re-invent what already works well. As for seed starting containers, the best container is no container. Mr. Coleman describes a method using “soil blocks” which creates containers out of the soil itself. What could be simpler?
Eliot's book and the soil block maker gizmos So here’s how we do it using 2” soil blocks. We have a mixing pan which is nothing more a piece of plywood with 2” x 6” sides nailed to it. I usually place the pan on a table to help save my back. In the pan I mix the following using a 1 gallon bucket and a 1 cup measure: (reference page 141 of Eliot’s book)
I mix these together using a child’s hoe which is just the right size tool. After mixing, I wet it until it holds it’s shape. I make a set of test blocks and if they are too dry, I just return them to the pan, add some more water and try again. Nothing wasted!
The mixing tray just sits on top, can be moved out of the way when more space is needed for potting.
Ed making soil blocks Press hard and really fill these babies up. We push this back and forth on the bottom to make sure it's packed well. Keep the mixture moist enough that it sticks together.
We're almost ready to plant a seed! On page 143 of Eliot’s book there is a drawing showing wooden flats with three sides on which the soil blocks are placed. This is exactly what we do.
The Soil Blocks ready to go into the plant propagation hoop house The soil block maker has a small pin in it which creates a little hole in the top of the block for placing seeds. Depending on the plant, the seeds are not covered at all or just sprinkled with the mix. The soil blocks are rather fragile, but they aren’t handled directly so they hold together quite well. They must be watered of course. Because they don’t have any hard containment, heavy watering will just blast them apart. A fine mist is the best way to water these guys. I use a 1/2 GPH misting nozzle on a garden hose. I get mine at “Grower Supply” but they are readily available. If the soil blocks are not in direct sun, misting a couple of times a day seems to be sufficient. I've had very good success germinating seeds inside using the soil blocks without any bottom heat. This year I am planning on placing the trays in the hoop house until they are ready for transplanting. The nights are still pretty cool here even in April, so we'll be putting them into the plant propagation hoop house for a while before hardening them off. Check out our propagation page here for the next step in seed starting.
I tried the sawhorse arrangement shown on that page for holding the flats. It worked great for holding the flats but after the plants started growing, it also provided a seed starting smörgåsbord for some local mice. They seemed to know that I wouldn’t strike at them while they were among my plants, so they just sat there staring at me while they nibbled away. I finally ran the mice off by spraying them with water. They were probably full by that time anyway. Seed Starting Failure Tip below! I ended up building a cage to hold the flats. I even put grow lights in it thinking I was being real inventive. All that did was cause the plants to grow real tall and spindly trying to reach the lights. Not a good seed starting tip! I must admit though, the cage was ideal when we started raising chickens. We raised about 60 chicks in it until they were old enough to turn loose in the chicken pen (that is a tale for another day and another page).
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Ya Wanna Buy a Rock?!!!
The Soil Mixing table. Simple, easy seed starting.
