Growing Seedlings - DIY - Tricks And Tips

Growing vegetable seedlings is always done by my dad but this year, do to some medical problems we need to do it here instead of his village residence. Time is of the essence here, you need to start growing them when it's indicated, otherwise there's a high chance you get nothing. We have four seasons here (theoretically), so we needed to do something.

The difference is he has everything there, I have almost nothing as I'm always growing my flowers but that's all. Flowers are easy to grow, you don't need to do much and many times I'm buying seedlings from the farmers market, bypassing this phase.

Ingredients

As I said, this move caught us unprepared and we needed supplies to start with. My dad went to the shop and came home with these.

First of all a 10L bag of soil for growing seedlings. Soil is maybe the most important ingredient, if it's not the right type, you can end up with nothing.

Seed pots of different shapes, made of recycled paper and a tray to place the pots on. I'm really proud of my dad for making this amazing choice. He has plastic trays at home but today he chose to buy paper without me telling him anything. Good choice!

He also bought some seeds that were missing from the collection. Sweet corn, zucchini and honeydew.

Nails for fixing foils. This is not for immediate use as it's not needed for seedlings but we need them when plating the seedlings out to fix the foils.

These photos are from last year, I took them while fixing the foils.

It's a great tool to have when you want to fight weed.

The Process

Green pepper.

As you can see, the period to plant the seeds is January - March, it's the end of January now, so it's time to do it.

Red pepper, again, the the period to plant these seeds is January - March.

XXXL size red pepper. Can't wait to taste these.

These little cups are for planting seeds.

It's just the right size, perfect to grow roots. As you can see there's no hole at the bottom but because it's made of paper, excess water can be eliminated, plus paper can hold moister for some time, which is an advantage.

Fill the pots with soil but not to be full as now comes the trick.

Place the other tray on the top and press it gently to make holes in the soil.

After planting the seeds, cover with soil and water every hole to have moisture so the seed can germinate.

Seeds need to be kept warm in order to germinate, so I placed them on the top of the radiator till they start to grow. After that they need light.

DIY Tips

If you don't want to spend money on paper trays, you can do these yourself. On the photo you can see a cardboard core of a toilet paper roll.

Just fold inwards one end and make a pot out of it.

Fill it with soil and you can plant seeds in it.

Another way is to recycle some plastic cups that are not needed anymore. As there's not much recycling going on in my city, I'm repurposing what I can. These are plastic cups of dairy products. It's hard plastic, you can't just make a hole with a needle or a nail as they broke. I had to heat a nail and make holes. Befor eyou start telling me it's not safe as burning plastic is toxic, there were just three.

And it's done, excess water can come out so I don't kill anything by overwatering like some do.

Joke Of The Day

Last time I could only plant one type of running petunia, so today I thought it's time to do the other one as well.

These repourposed plastic cups looked perfect for the job.

This is the pack of seeds. I love this color, it's beautiful.

And these are the seeds. I was speechless when I saw these tiny seeds. My plan was to grow enough seedlings to give some to my dad but this surprise crossed all my plans. So I put all seeds in one cup and we'll see what I get out of it. Maybe nothing.

Now I have to monitor moisture and water them every second or so day and I'll be back with updates.

My apartment became a greenhouse for the first time but I'm ok with it. A little sacrifice is worth it to have so many goodies during the season.