starting soil..

We went to a local nursery & asked for starting soil. They gave us a bag marked TRAY MIX which they made themselves & use. It is a little heavy but does have peat & the styrofoam looking pellets in it. It also has what looks like small wood chips & small pieces of twigs maybe even the main veins of leaves. That leads me to think some compost is in it also. Do U think this will do OK for seed starting? It is cheaper than what the stores carry but I want my seeds to come up too.
Another question..
Do U wet your soil before U plant the seeds or after. I wet this before & it seemed a little lumpy (best way I know how to describe it)
Thanks for any answers :)
Sugar_fl

I don't know whats in the mix so its hard to say one way or the other, the styrofoam looking pellets might be perlite. I'm sure some of your seeds will come up anyway. You can use the paper towel germination technique and then transplant the sprouts into the soil. It's up to you.

I damp the soil prior to sowing or setting the sprouts, the soil shouldn't be wet, just moist. If you can, always water seeds and seedlings from a tray underneath rather than on top of the soil.

Baa,
I'm doing winter sowing & the dirt is staying very damp with the covers on them. The covers have slots or small holes in them. I have been sowing for several weeks now & some have germinated (different soil)... I have quite a few tomato plants up & so far they have survived some below freezing weather outside. I planted some flower seeds in peat pellets & they have germinated better than anything else. I think every sunflower (small ones) I sowed came up. Now if they will live till time to transplant in the garden. I just started using this new soil.
Thanks,
Sugar_fl

I like to have the soil damp - before I plant the seeds. Then I'll use a gentle spray after I plant. I've never been fond of bottom watering. Not sure why but I have a hard time judging how much is enough. It seems like I end up with a soggy mess and roots start rotting. With winter-sown seeds last year I really didn't have to water until the warm weather came and I started venting the covers more & more. The covers seemed to keep enough moisture in with out extra watering.

Sugar: I do a lot of indoor propagation, since most things need to be started early with our short season. I use soiless starter, sterile to prevent dampening off..when healty seedlings begin to rot at the stems and fall over like fallen trees.

If you do many trays, it becomes pricey, so I reuse the starter mix by sterilizing it in the oven in turkey roasting bags. I just fill the bag, lay it flattened out on a cookie sheet, punch a few holes, and put it in an oven that has been preheated to 180 degrees. When the mix reaches an internal temp of 180 degrees (use a meat thermometer), continue baking for another 20 minutes.

Since these mixes are generally soiless, a little overheating doesn't seem to hurt anything. The cooking bag helps to minimize the odor during the process, though I think the soiless mix probably smells less offensive than actually sterilizing soil.

When I use this mix, I place the required amount in a bowl,add a small amount of water and let it sit for awhile...go have a cup of coffee or a soda. I tend to keep the medium rather on the dry side and water by spray bottle indirectly by misting the dome lids and letting the water "rain" down on the surface.

Once the seedlings start appearing, I still mist from the top, and that makes transplanting so much easier. Soggy medium seems to damage the delicate root systems when I start worrying them out of the containers.

Weezingreens,
I did something that is funny NOW..We went to a local nursery & he showed us how they do things...he said they just moisten the soil & lift the plant out holding it by the leaf.. My DH has lots of tomatoes started under lights so when we got ready to put them in separate containers I was gonna do one like the nursery. I dampned the soil.. took hold of the leaf & gently pulled.. You guessed it the stem broke..to make matters worse he had planted several of each type & this was the only that came up of this one..thank goodness he had a few more seeds of it..I promise I won't put a finger on then. I sure hope he gets at least one.. *G*

Well, here's a different perspective, just to keep things interesting :)

Personally I do like bottom watering - when my flats get "light" (that's a technical term, LOL), I pour 3-4 cups of tepid water (with/without diluted seaweed fertilizer) in a standard-size flat. Any that doesn't absorb in about an hour is drained off. If the soil gets really dry on top, I take a hand-baster thingy (I got it from Park Seed eons ago), and gently spray the top. Somehow it seems if I break the soil's crust, it wicks up better.

For potting up, I use a pencil with a not-too-sharp tip for a small dibble. Insert near the roots of the seedling, and push up while you gently tug on the leaf. I have a "real" dibble (or dibber), but it's too big for tiny seedlings.

When I'm filling flats to start seeds, I don't like handling premoistened mix, as I think it compacts too much, and it's messy. I fill my flat or cells, lightly press down with my fingers, fill to the top with more mix, then I add warm water (bottom and/or top) until thoroughly moistened before I plant my seeds.

I am quickly becoming a fan of "pro mix" that I buy in 40-lb bags from Home Depot. Much cheaper than Jiffy mix, it's finely shredded peat, bark, and perlite. No vermiculite, which is okay, given there is a supposed cancer risk with inhaling it. The best part of the pro mix is that I am not experiencing the same amount of moss-growth on the top of my soil like I did last year with Jiffy mix (which also contains fertilizer.)

Vols

Do you have widgers for sale in the US? That's the tool we use in GB for pricking out seedlings (personally I'm a cheapskate and use a biro LOL).

Baa, we have neither widgers nor biros, to the best of my knowledge. (But those sound like terms that should be in Gardenology - hint, hint :)

A Biro is a disposable pen, a widger I will add to the gardenology.

Other nations must wonder what sort of people the British gardeners really are with their dibbers and widgers ;)

here is a url http://shop.store.yahoo.com/eclectic-gardener/widgerdibbler.html , to see what it is. the question is how do u use it??

That looks pretty nifty! I'd guess you use it like I described using a common #2 pencil - you use it to help dislodge the roots and push the plant out of the soil while you're simultaneously (gently) tugging on the leaf (remember to always tug on the leaf, not the stem - it's better to pick up plants by their "ears" instead of their "necks", LOL)

MVR it's now in Gardenology and has a number of uses. The one on the link is a bit different to the widger I'm used to seeing.

This message was edited Thursday, Feb 14th 7:03 PM

thanks Baa.

Very interesting exchange. I've never really discussed the tools I use to transplant, but it seems we all have our favorites. I have a pair of tweezers, the kind with the pointed ends. I use the flat end to lift the planting medium and plant roots before extracting the seedling, at which time I can use the other end of the tweezers (not squeezing) to lift the plant by placing the tweezer forks under the cotyledons. As go-vols does, I make a hole for the seedling to drop into, but the tweezers make it possible to hold on to the seedling without dropping it in. I think this is part of the reason for my success transplanting poppies, since the hole can be made quite deep and the taproot is undamaged during the transplant.

My experience with keeping the soil wet from the bottom with tiny seedlings is that wet soil is much harder to separate from the seedling roots, as well as damaging the seedlings when you try to worry them out. If the seedlings are substantial and need bottom watering, I let them dry out a bit before transplanting.

Concerning the widger, I just ordered something similar from Pintree for $2.49...they call it a nitpicker. It is an item they will mail with your seed order, as they won't with some items. I can see that this tool will be handy for lifting a cluster of seedlings from the mix, but I'm not sure if it is small enough for separating, etc. I know I'm going to find it invaluable for lifting seedlings from cell packs when transfering them to 4" pots.

Sugar: I think your DH, being a DH, probably took pulling out to be PULLING out. I have to remind myself every spring to be gentle with these little guys. Rather than pulling or even lifting the little buggers, I have to tell myself I am lifting the mix around them, holding the plant aloft by its cotyledon, then letting the mix fall away. The same applies when I plant the seedling into soil. I make a hole, suspend the seedling into it, then gently press around it, never actually touching the seedling. Of course, tomato plants are pretty tough little guys, so they can take a bit more abuse.

One tip I learned from a local greenhouse concerns transplanting tomatoes. Not the little seedlings, but when the seedlings have already been transplanted, have become tall, and need to be transplanted again. He suggested that you transplant the tomato sideways in the pot, allowing the long stem to trail up the inside wall. It seems that more roots form along the stem as the repotted plant grows. He said that is why you often see tomato plants with the stem coming up along the edge of the pot, rather than the corner.

Weezingreens, I wish I had seen that tool when I placed my Pinetree order - I bet I would have wanted one, LOL!

Tomatoes do form roots along their stem. As I'm potting mine up to grow for selling, I'm leaving some head room in the plastic cups I'm putting them in. I figure if they start to get lanky, I can always "hill up" a little in the pot, and encourage more root growth along the stem.

And when I plant mine out, I always bury them up to the first set of leaves - when I've purchased lanky seedlings in the past, I've buried them sideways in the soil, leaving the top poking out.

This is a great thread, and I'm enjoying keeping up with it; I hope others will keep the opinions and tips coming!

...I plant mine sideways too, Vols......seem to do a lot better that way.

"eyes"

goVols: You mentioned growing tomatoes in bags..I did the same last year. I ordered some quart and gallon sized bags from Pleasant Valley when I ordered my Sluggo. The quart bags were great for petunias, etc., and the gallon bags worked well for the tomato plants. These are black bags with drainage holes. They have enough height to fold down a cuff on the top to strenthen them and hold the tomato plant upright after you reroute they're direction. I rinsed any bags I had left over, and I'll use them again this spring. I also found them great for putting annuals in driftwood, rock crevices, or any little spot you want to add a little color. They hold up all summer and are easily removed in the fall.

I agree, this is a great thread, and it's getting long enough to knit a sweater!...WZ