Planting Trays

So we reviewed warming mats and lights for seedlings, how about we dive into seed cells or pots for the seeds.  I have tried various methods to starting seeds inside and found the seed trays with a humidity dome to work the best.  You can find the trays really anywhere.  I purchased mine from The Greenhouse Megastore, Seed Trays.  There are many to choose from, I would make sure they have no holes in them (you can buy ones with holes). 



Then I purchased the humidity domes.  These help keep moisture and warmth in for the seedlings.  Especially when the weather is cold the dome and the heating pads help jump start your seeds.



This picture shows the humidity dome on the tray.  You can buy them both at the same time.

Here is also a new site that I have come across that has seed trays, you may want to take a look, Unbeatablesale.com.

So we have the seed trays and dome, now we need to decide what to use for the seed cells or flats.  I use a 6 cell flat, I like this size as they are not overly big but not really small to get the seedlings out.  I have tried smaller cells but is is difficulty to try to remove your new plant.  With these I can use a hand weeder to get the seedling out with damaging it. 

The flats come in as 8 connected- 6 cell units, which is a total of 48 cells, but they are perforated so you can easily snap them apart.  You will want to have them smaller to work with, it is way to difficult to re pot seedlings with such a large tray, hence the six pack is easier to work with.

So this sounds like allot to purchase to start out growing seeds indoors, but there are some pros to the situation.
1.  If you check in with nursery owners or places like Home Depot, sometimes you can get some of their potting equipment- especially if they are going to throw them away, ChaChing for you.
2.  You can use these over and over, providing they don't split, which I think of the 100 or so that I have 2 have fallen apart.
3. Once you get the seedlings to a state to transplant- you can start another batch and keep going.

I would shop around and see what you can find from local nurseries, neighbors and friends.  If you buy online Amazon, Greenhouse Megastore have about the best prices, but if I have the time to scout around sometimes I can find good prices with other places.  I am a true believer in free shipping so I always look for that.

If you are in the Salt Lake Valley, Western Garden is a good place that you can go in and see allot of the items, to get a feel for what you want, many times they will also have deals going on.  Since I live about an hour from Salt Lake, I rely on on-line shopping.  Western Garden Locations

Fun Indoors- Keeping Warm

So I talked about bit about growing lights in the last blog, now I think we should move onto warming mats.

What are warming mats.  They are simply a mat that you place underneath a growing tray to provide warm to the soil and seeds to "kick start" the germination process.  Now it is not a requirement to have these, if fact if you are starting seeds inside your house and have a warm place for the trays to sit, a warming mat is not really a necessity.  I do start all my seeds in the greenhouse and did an experiment with the warming mat.  I placed one of my seedling trays with half of it on the warm mat and the other half with no heat added.  The heated area started sprouting seeds 2 weeks before the other non-heated seeds. 

The mats come in several sizes, and if you are wanting the most bang for your buck I would go with a mat that will hold at least 2 trays at a time.  There are many places to buy these little items such as Amazon, 48 inch Seedling Heat Mat.  or the Greenhouse Megastore has quite a few to choose from, Greenhouse Megastore heating mats. 



This is a small picture of what a seedling mat looks like.  You will need power for this.

There are also windowsill size mats that are not to expensive, the Greenhouse Megastore has them for 17.00, and Amazon has them for 15.65 with free shipping option.
 

Indoor Growing

Since it is freezing cold outside, I thought this might be a good time to talk about indoor planting/growing.

My husband and I (I think I should say, my Husband & Father InLaw- Dave) built a greenhouse about 4 years ago.  We thought our growing season is so short that if we had the plants ready to bloom right before we take them outside we might have better luck especially with our tomatoes.

Keep in mind the growing of various seeds inside is an on going experiement, and does require allot of patience.

One great tool to have in a greenhouse for winter growth is a Grow Light.  We purchased a Hydrofarm JSV2 2 foot jump start T5 Grow Light system.  There are many out there to choose from, but I found a great deal on Amazon and liked that it had stands so went with it.  They are not to expensive and will really jump start the growth of seeds.

Jump Start Grow Light

Not sure if you can see in this picture, the grow light?

Here are a couple of pictures of our greenhouse.  The green house is connected to a very sturdy "Kicking Wall" that we put in place so our daughters can practice soccer kicks, throw softballs and so forth.

Redoing Flower Beds

Have you ever looked at one of your flower beds and thought, That bed needs a makeover.  Well I had that thought this summer.  I have a nice bed in the front of the house, but it is all one level, so you can't always see the flowers that are smaller.  So after a visit with my Master Gardener Aunt Janice, I decided to redo mine.

I wanted to redo the bed with a little interruption as I could to the plants already there as well as not raid my bank account in the process.  So here is what I did.
1. First I took our work trailer and picked up so good size rocks from the roadside, pastures and other vacant areas- Please get permission if it is private property.
2.  The I started with the first layer, a large ring of rocks about 12-16 inches from the already existing boulders we had in place. (as seen by the picture)

3. After the first ring was in, I then had to pull out the existing plants and quickly re pot them, in case I did not finish this project in a couple of days.
4. I went to the local Nursery with my work trailer and bought top soil ($60). 
5. Then I filled in the inside of the first ring, wet it down, to see if I had any areas that were not level, and moved onto the next ring.
6.  I made about 4 rings of rocks and filled them in, so I now have elevation in the flower bed.
7.  Then I went back to work and planted what I had taken out.

This bed took me a couple days to complete from start to finish, I did gather up the rocks prior to the actually bed building.  For this size of bed and elevation I was working towards, it took me a couple days to find and deliver enough rocks for the project.  Keep in mind if you want to use other items to build up a bed, you may want to consider rail road ties, old drift wood, etc, it is all up to your imagination.

Depending on your water source to your flower bed, if you elevate,  you may want to consider putting risers on the water heads as to get the plants/flowers at the top portion of your bed.

Also if you have any trees in the bed, you will not want the soil up high on the tree, they do not like that, so where I had a tree I placed rocks around it and no extra soil, I did not want to make them mad.


 

Master Gardener Program- Summit County, UT

Summit County has the 2013 Master Gardner Program set up and you can sign up for the course.  This is a great opportunity to learn more about our climate and what grows best here.  I am signing up and if you are wanting to carpool or need a partner so you can sign up as a "couple"  let me know, I might be able to help out.  Hope to see you in the class.
Sign up for Master Gardener Course- Summit/Wasatch County


The classes begin February 7th and run through April 25th, 2013.  The class times are  from 1:00pm-3:30pm every Thursday.  The location of the classes alternate from Heber to Park City.  The registration deadline is JANUARY 25, 2013.   If you can not get the application from the link above, email me and I do have it saved as a file, sometimes it is tricky to get to open.   You can also call Sterling Banks @ 435-615-3217- He is very helpful as well as the staff in the office.