Early Seed Sowing for the Vegetable Garden

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My last frost date is at the end of next month, which means that it’s time to sow the first seeds of the year. Let me show you the materials and methods I use, including the potting mix, trays and pots, my heated propagator, and why I’m starting seeds undercover. You’ll also see which seeds I’m sowing now for my zone 8b garden, including both vegetables and flowers.

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00:00 Introduction
01:41 Seed starting materials
01:55 How to clean plastic plant labels
02:44 Mixing seedling compost
03:21 Sowing sweet pea seeds in root trainers
04:31 Sowing lettuce seeds in one-inch modules
05:33 Flower seeds that need light to germinate
06:59 Sowing sweet pepper and luffa seeds
08:27 Broad bean, kohlrabi, and sprouting broccoli seeds
09:19 Beefsteak tomato seeds
10:10 Grow room tour

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#garden #vegetablegarden #gardening

It’s finally the day seed sewing day up until now I have not started any seeds this year but now that we’re a little bit closer to my last frost State it’s time to get certain varieties of vegetables and flour started so today I’m going to take you through some of

The materials and the equipment that I use for seed starting also how I sew seeds and then we will of course go through everything that I’m sewing this month let’s get Started in my last video I moved the potting bench and all of my seed starting materials into the PO crub here where it is bright it is relatively warm actually and it gives me a better space to film as well and although it is relatively warm in here nighttime

Temperatures are about 3 celius it’s not quite there yet for me to start seeds directly in here and that brings me to last frost date our last frost date here is about the first of March and I know that a lot of hardier greens like lettuce and spinach can go out in the

Garden at that point and can be protected with fleece and other methods and so no that date and we’re about 6 weeks away now that means that I can start seeds now in anticipation of being able to plant them outside around that date all right let’s go through what I’m

Using to start my seeds off today closest to us are plant labels the humble and very important plant label that will help you to not lose track of what you’ve actually sewn if you have any leftover from last year that are covered in old permanent marker know

That nail polish remover takes it right off behind them is a stack of seeds and I’ll go through each and every one of those in just a moment and then over here this is my growing medium for most things that I start off and I have a

Petree potting mix or compost as it’s called here in the UK and then on the other side this is vermiculites and I use this to lighten up this pting mix because you can see that it is quite fibrous and by lightening it up with vermiculite it creates better drainage

And better air and better composition for seeds to grow in now that I’m ready to start sewing seeds I need to mix together the potting mix and the vermiculites and you can see that it’s quite light and fluffy you can see a lot of that vermiculite in there and that is

Perfect for sewing seeds in and vermiculite is just puffed up volcanic rock and it creates lots of air and space within the mixture it also adds in drainage yet it does absorb a bit of water so that young plants can tap into that without having their Roots

Absolutely soaking wet first up are the Sweet Peas I grow quite a few flowers not for eating but for attracting pollen ators and also because I love flowers and one of them that I love the most are sweet peas and I have two varieties here and these are probably the most fragrant

Flower that I grow and I’m going to be sewing the seeds into root trainers and these are special containers that allow for deeper root growth and certain types of plants like sweet peas really benefit from them and the way they work as they arrive like this so kind of a clamshell

You put them together and although you won’t find it on the instructions it’s best to secure these with either a rubber band or a piece of string I’ve got some green string here because they do have a tendency to want to flop open as you work but once you have these

Secured you can add the potting mix that you have ready to go sew your seeds into each of one of the modules label it with a plant label and grow them on smaller seeds like these lettuce and the coriander can go into this size of module this is a 1 in

Size module and I’m going to actually put all of these together in the same tray just to conserve space and if you are looking at some seeds and you’ve got the same size I wouldn’t actually recommend sewing seeds that are any larger than your coriander your cilantro seeds in this

Size I’m just going to fill all of these modules and I always press down with my fingers just to take any extra air out of these because we want to fill them up as much as we can put a little bit extra on top and then I’m going to very shallowly sew

These seeds and the rule with sewing seeds is you don’t want to plant them or sew them any deeper than two to three times their actual length I have a few more flowers that I’m starting off today and these I’m going to grow amongst other ones around the edges of my bed

And plunk them in wherever there is space because they will draw in the pollinators they will look beautiful and help reduce the need for weeding I want a lot of seedlings a lot of plants from these three packets of flower seeds we’ve got a Salvia here a Snapdragon in

The middle and then Sephora here on the end and to be able to get lots and lots of seedlings the best container are these kind of open Flats you can get them in a larger size or this half size here as well and you just fill them with

Your potting mix and you can either do drills or you can broadcast sew the seed inside and then once the seedlings are of a certain size depending on the plant you prick them out into individual pots or individual modules it’s just a quick and easy way to sew a lot of seeds and

To get a lot of seedlings I also want to point out that interestingly of these three these two flowers their seeds need light to germinate so I will not be putting them underneath the potting mix I’ll just be pressing them into the surface next up

On on the list are sweet peppers or mild Peppers now spicy peppers like chili peppers they do benefit from being sewn a month earlier so last month in January but sweet peppers they don’t need as long to produce and so starting them off now in February or even into March is

Perfect some seeds really benefit from having added heat so bottom heat to help them to germinate this early on in the season and that includes all of these peppers and I’ve realized that I don’t have any seeds left for this one so I’m going to put it aside so I’ve got three

Peppers that I’m going to be sewing today and also luah and these are going to be going into my heated propagator you can also use a heat mat to help stimulate germination as well now Lua they’re are much larger seed I grew these last year this is basically a grow your own

Sponge and because the seeds are so much larger they do need a larger pot and so this 2 in is probably the bare minimum for them 3 in even better now as far as the peppers are concerned they’re much smaller seeds but because I am going to

Be using my heated propagator I need to conserve space and so I’m going to be sewing a few seeds of each in these pots and then thinning them out or pricking them out and potting them on at a later Point I’ve got some more vegetable lined up broad beans also called fava beans

Love them I’ve got some Autumn sewn ones out in the garden right now but I want to sew a few more to have another Harvest we also love col Robie getting some of those started today along with Summer sprouting purple sprouting broccoli I’m also sewing my Ober jeans

Today my eggplants and in years past I’ve always started these off in January but I think starting them off this month is going to be better because in years past they’ve lingered on needing to be planted out and I wasn’t quite ready to put them out here in the poly crub so

I’m hoping that by starting them now in February that they’ll catch up and they’ll be much healthier plants early on last on the list are these big beef steak tomatoes Tomatoes Tomatoes however you’d like to call them I get grief about how I say it every single year now

There are three varieties here I’ve got ananas Noir which I got from she grow veg last year before she went all professional with her seed packet and our Seed Company I’ve also got costoluto fortino beautiful good tasting tomato and then two years ago I grew big pink

And I’m going to give it another go and it grew enormous pink fruits great for slicing and really good flavor all of my other Tomatoes I am sewing next month so all of the salad types and the smaller Cherry types they get started off in March welcome to my grow room otherwise

Known as the dining room I’ve taken it over this winter with overwintering all of my house plants but now that it’s spring this is going to be where I’m going to be raising a lot of the more tender seedlings and also starting off some quite early like I have today over

Here on the left this is the grow light area so you can see there’s two sets of grow lights and that’s plenty for my needs I know that some people have much larger Grow rooms and much larger grow lights but for just the two of us growing enough tomatoes and egg plant

And all of that those are more than plenty now as far as the seeds that that I just sewed some of them are sitting here on the table so we’ve got the sweet peas here and we’ve got a couple of pots here I think the parsley is here

And the rocket and then we’ve got the broad beans and the flowers over here as well this is what I’m using to water the compost so it’s just spraying it on lightly and doing this instead of using a more traditional watering can like that means that I’m not going to disturb

The soil so those really fine seeds are not going to get washed away and there’s not going to be any pits left in the poting mix from pouring water on them this is my heated propagator it’s a unit that plugs into the wall you can see it over there and

It provides bottom heat so about 20° C and the heated element is underneath these trays if I can pick them up without making a mess so down underneath there that area is warm and that warmth comes up through these trays and into where the seeds are germinating in here and

This plastic cover helps to keep the heat in but also helps to keep the humidity in as well and you can change how much humidity by turning that toggle there I’ve put the peppers here in the middle because they need a little bit warmer of a temperature to germinate and

This tends to be just slightly warmer like one Dee warmer in the middle compared to the eggplant which I have over here the Ober jeans and then I have the tomatoes and luah over here now the way that this works is that as soon as the seeds

Germinate inside I can take them out and give them more light which is why I’ve got the grow lights already set up so as soon as I see those tomatoes and eggplant and peppers start germinating they will be moved over immediately and they’ll be kept in the house until

Probably late April very early May on the other hand these guys over here on the table they don’t need to be Molly coddled as far as temperature they’re more temperate vegetables and so as soon as they germinate they’re going back out in the poly crb exciting times the very first seeds

Of the year are in they will be germinating soon I’ll start to see Little Sprouts coming up and the ones that need warmth are on warmth so they’re in the propagator they’re going to get what they need now if you have started seedlings before me or you’re

Just kind of curious as to what to do next I have another video and that goes through how to care for seedlings that you are raising indoors so in your kitchen in your home somewhere and everything from fungus knats to how to water them all of that and you can watch that video

Next thank you so much for watching and I will see you in a couple of weeks for one of my longer form videos it’s going to be the Garden in February and in that I’m going to take you through the entire Garden to show you what’s happening I’ll

See you then but bye for now