Things I Find Helpful for Starting Seeds

It's *kind of* time to start seeds! I honestly might be jumping the gun a little bit here in mid-January, but COVID has been running rampant around town and I need a little something green and growing in the house to bring more sunshine into my mood.

Some of the varieties I am growing this season.

I'll go over more of my general gardening plan in a future post, but generally, I like to start some of my veggies and flowers indoors in the winter, depending on what their growing instructions suggest. The rest are saved to be planted directly outside in the spring once we've passed the danger of frost. Of course, it's the Midwest and Kansas likes to give us all the middle finger so there's always a chance that a surprise frost will come through.

I enjoyed growing peppers last year so this season, I'm growing a hot variety and sweet variety.

My haul from Baker's Creek came in last week, and fun stuff, they even threw in a free packet of lettuce seeds. That I will not use because I'm not a big fan of lettuce. But I appreciate it.

When I start seeds, I typically rely on the following nifty pieces of equipment:

• narrow cell seed trays with starter covers

• foldable LED growlight (Here's the one I bought from Amazon)

• adjustable, tiered grow stand with cover

• spray bottle

I like using seed trays with narrowed cells because it helps encourage solid root growth and makes it easier down the line to pop out each seedling without doing damage. The covers are helpful in the first few weeks for keeping the environment warm and moist. Of course, regular seed trays and plastic wrap would work just as well.

I'm really digging these weird-looking flowers.

Last season, I used an old-school growlight with bulbs for my seedlings. It worked well, but it was heavy and you have to replace the bulbs when they burn out. I really like this new, LED grow light I found on Amazon. It was easy to set up fast and folds in half for storage. Having a growlight is essential for me to start seedlings indoors, as you'd really have to get a LOT of sun through a window in order to keep plants happy.

Small but mighty set-up.

I got the metal grow stand from my grandpa and it's amazing. It has wheels so it's really easy to move around and the pully system lets me adjust the height of each rack, meaning that as seedlings grow, I just adjust the rack instead of messing with the light. The cover isn't needed per se, but I find that it helps reflect the light back onto the seed trays so less light escapes. And of course, the handy dandy spray bottle helps with gently misting seedlings.

A final note: I like to keep some of my seeds in reserve in case I somehow mess up the first round. As long as I plant a few of each variety, I usually have had a good germination rate from my Baker's Creek seeds; but I feel better knowing that if nothing comes up, I can try again with different soil or conditions.