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Ensure that your plants are organic by starting them from your own seed.
Every gardener, whether a novice or an expert will take great satisfaction in sowing a tiny tomato seed inside and then 6 months later standing in the garden among the chest-deep bounty of caged plants and ripening fruit.
Starting ones own plants from seeds allows one to grow many interesting varieties—including disease-resistant vegetables and flowers which are especially valuable to organic gardeners— that are not available as bedding plants. Start your own seeds and you can be sure that your plants have been raised organically from first to last. And by sprouting and nursing your own seedlings, you don't have to wait for warm weather to get your hands dirty. Best of all, starting your own seeds is easy and fun. Here's how to get started now:
Decide which plant is best for you.
Some plants lend themselves to home germination better than others. Surefire vegetables include basil, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, cauliflower, chives, leeks, lettuce, onions, peppers, and tomatoes. Some reliable annual flowers are alyssum, cosmos, marigolds, and zinnias. Perennials include Shasta daisies, columbines, and hollyhocks.
Get your timing down for your zone.
It is important to calculate when to sow your seeds, go to your computer and create a seed planting chart, print it out and then fill in the blanks. Then you will have a planting plan you can follow through the season.
Gather your containers and be ready to go.
One can reuse last year's nursery flats if you have some around. Otherwise, any container 2 or 3 inches deep will do. Punch holes for drainage into the bottom of containers and set them into trays. Protect against plant disease by thoroughly cleaning all used containers: Wash them in hot, soapy water, and rinse with a dilute solution of 10% household bleach and 90% water. If you want a less-irritating substitute for the bleach, use distilled white vinegar.
Pick the right growing medium as it is important.
You can buy bags of seed-starter mix or you can make your own by blending equal parts of perlite, vermiculite, and peat. Add 1/4 teaspoon of lime to each gallon of mix to neutralize the acidity of the peat. You'll eventually want to repot most of your seedlings into larger containers before setting them into the garden. But lettuce, melons, and cucumbers are finicky about being transplanted and should go directly from the original containers into the garden. When starting these fussier plants, always add two parts well-aged, screened compost to your mix to give them a healthy beginning.
Sow carefully or you will not get any results.
Moisten your medium in the containers before sowing the seeds. Next, drop seeds onto the surface of the mix, spacing them as evenly as possible. Cover the seeds to a depth about three times the thickness of the seeds. Some seeds, such as ageratum, alyssum, impatiens, petunias, and snapdragons, should not be covered at all because they need light in order to germinate.
Top it off to insure growth.
Lightly sprinkle milled sphagnum moss, a natural fungicide, over everything to protect against damping-off, a fungal disease that rots seeds and seedlings. In the case of seeds that need light to germinate, sprinkle the moss first and then drop the seeds onto the moss.
Keep seeds warm and moist.
Cover the flats with plastic wrap or glass to keep the environment humid and place them near a heat vent or on a heat mat made especially for seed starting. Most seeds germinate well at about 70 degrees F.
Keep them damp is important, but don't drown them.
Mist with a spray bottle or set the trays into water so the mix wicks up the moisture from below.
Lighten up and start to see results.
At the first signs of sprouting, uncover and move the containers to a bright spot—a sunny window, a greenhouse, or beneath a couple of ordinary fluorescent shop lights (4-footers with two 40-watt bulbs). The lights are worthwhile, especially if you live in the North. They provide a steady source of high-intensity light. Short days restrict window light, and your seedlings need 12 to 16 hours of light a day. Suspend the lights just 2 inches above the plants and gradually raise them as the seedlings mature. If plants have to stretch or lean toward the light, they can become weak and spindly. To turn the lights on and off at the same time each day, hook them up to an electric timer.
Cool down gradually.
Seedlings don't have to stay as warm as germinating seeds. Move them away from radiators and air vents, or off the heating mat, as soon they have germinated. If you have a small green house you can move them outdoors each day that is not windy.
Feed them or they will be stunted.
If you are using a soil-less mix without compost, begin to fertilize your seedlings as soon as they get their first true leaves. (These leaves emerge after the little, round cotyledon leaves.) Water with a half-strength solution of liquid fish/seaweed fertilizer every week or two. Use either a spray bottle or add the fertilizer to the water you set the trays in if you're using the wick-up method described above.
Give them room to grow.
If the seedlings outgrow their containers or crowd one another, repot them into larger containers filled with a mix that includes compost. Extract the seedlings with a narrow fork or flat stick, and handle by their leaves and roots to avoid damaging the fragile stems. Tuck the seedlings gently into the new pots, and water them to settle the roots.
Pet them, believe it or not, it works.
Lightly ruffling seedlings once or twice a day with your hand or a piece of cardboard helps them to grow stocky and strong. Or, set up a small fan to gently, continuously blow on your seedlings.
Toughen them up, but keep out of high winds.
About 1 week before the plants are to go outside, start acclimating them to the harsh conditions of the big world. Gardeners call this hardening off. On a warm spring day move the containers to a shaded, protected place, such as a porch, for a few hours. Each day—unless the weather is horrible—gradually increase the plants exposure to sun and breeze. At the end of the week leave them out overnight; then transplant them into your garden.
If you have bought roses you should pot up new bareroot roses into two or three gallon pots to give them an opportunity to develop roots before planting into the garden. Keep the pots in a warm sunny location for 3-4 weeks.
In my zone 6, now is the time to cut butterfly bushes (buddleia) back to six to eight inches above the ground.
Also in zone 6, this is the time to apply cottonseed meal, which is a good source of nitrogen, to azaleas and rhododendrons to give these plants a jump-start.
March is also the time here to apply dormant oil spray to fruit trees and deciduous shrubs and trees when the temperature rises above 50 degrees F to prevent scale and other problems.
In any area plant cool season crops such as peas, lettuce, and Swiss chard as soon as the ground can be worked.
Cut back ornamental grasses that were left for winter interest.
Before it is necessary, check your lawnmower and other power tools to ensure that they are running properly. In our area and I am sure your area also, repair shops will be very busy in a few weeks.
Give your compost pile a good turning.
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Author Bio Box: Arlene Wright Correll
 Resources: Excerpted from “Arlene’s Garden Series” by Arlene Wright-Correll
For more gardening or cooking information click http://www.learn-america.com/ and click on Arlene’s Books you can download or buy my gardening & cook books. All my royalties from the sale of my books go to the St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and we thank you for your attention to this site.
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