2 SEED STARTING Methods For Vegetable Gardening Success!

This video shows you two ways for starting seeds for incredible vegetable gardening success! These 2 seed starting methods maximize germination rates to help you grow bigger than ever. I show you how to germinate seeds in standard potting mix and in peat pellets!

TABLE OF CONTENTS
0:00 Starting Tomato Seeds For My Vegetable Garden
2:13 My Favorite Tool To Make Starting Seeds Easy!
2:38 How To Grow Seeds In Peat Pellets
5:34 How To Start Tomato Seeds In Seed Trays
6:33 Using A Seedling Heat Mat: A MUST For Success!
9:05 Seed Germination Results After 3 Days
10:27 Seedling Progress After 16 Days
10:39 When And How To Fertilize Seedlings
12:57 Adventures With Dale

If you have questions about how to start seeds and starting seeds in the garden, raised bed gardening, want to know about the things I grow in my garden, are looking for gardening tips and tricks, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the Comments below!

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34.1°N Latitude
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#gardening #gardeningtips #garden #seeds #seedstarting

what’s going on gardeners it’s sunday
january 30th and we just had a week’s
worth of the coldest weather we’ve had
in over four years here on the
southeastern coast of north carolina but
spring will be here before we know it
today i’m going to show you a complete
guide on how to start your warm weather
vegetable seedlings from seed if you’re
new to the channel please consider
subscribing and hitting the bell to
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check out our amazon storefront and
spreadshop in the video description for
a list of the gardening products i use
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other gear your support is greatly
appreciated every season the first warm
weather vegetable that i start from seed
are tomatoes and that’s because tomatoes
generally have the longest period of
time from starting the seed to
transplanting out in the garden for most
of us you want to start your tomato
transplants from seed anywhere from six
to ten weeks before your last average
frost date for me the magic number is
about eight weeks that’s my personal
preference now here i have a mixture of
six cell trays to start my seedlings as
well as some peat pellets that you can
see right here and it doesn’t matter
what arrangement you use peat pellets or
standard seed starting trays that you
just fill with a basic potting mix the
reason why i’m using both is because i
didn’t have enough peat pellets on hand
to do all 66 tomatoes that i’m starting
and i didn’t have enough seed trays on
hand to do all 66 tomatoes either so i
had to blend the two together if you’re
starting your tomato transplants in
regular seed trays such as these i
strongly recommend that you label them
all first that will make your life a
whole lot easier and if you’re starting
peat pellets the way i like to do it is
i make a little design right here this
is a 12 cell peat pellet tray i label
them one two three four and i put what
the variety names are there and then i
also
label the bottoms of these peat pellet
trays one
for one two three four as well so that
way i know the order of everything now
that i showed you two different mediums
for you to start your seeds in let me
show you how to begin the process now
for a pro tip one of the hardest things
for you to start your seedlings is
actually grabbing the seeds themselves
and handling them because they can be
hard to grip one tool i like to use is a
chopstick if you dip the end of the
chopstick in water it makes it a really
nifty and easy tool for you to grab onto
the individual seeds and it’s also great
for poking holes in the planting medium
or fluffing up your peat pods so first
we’ll start off with these peat pods or
these peat pellets whatever you want to
call them and
these have all been pre-moistened with
hot water that was nearly boiling
which hydrates them very quickly and
then i allow them to cool down back to
room temperature
so i like to take this chopstick and
just lightly fluff them up
because tomato seedlings need to be
planted about a quarter of an inch deep
which is a lot shallower than you think
there is no reason that you need to
aggressively bury your tomato seedlings
there’s just no need for that
they’re actually better planted closer
to the surface than they are buried
deeply so don’t worry about the depth of
your seedling only about a quarter to an
eighth of an inch is what you need now
that they’re all fluffed up i’ll show
you how to place the seeds so now i’m
going to dump the seeds in my hand just
like that and then i’m going to take my
chopstick and make the tip just a little
bit wet and that is going to grab onto
these seeds
so simply grab them and place them in
the in the appropriate peat pellet that
you already have pre-labeled
now you’ll notice that i actually placed
two seeds in each pellet and that’s
because when it comes to growing tomato
seeds or really any kind of seed
you want to over seed which means
placing more than one per individual
tray and that’s because no seedling or
no type of seed has a 100 germination
rate some of them are not going to come
up so by placing two per cell you have a
much better chance that something is
going to come up and in the off chance
that both of them fail in one of the
cells some of the others will have
doubles so you’ll be able to split them
in half and make up the difference now
we’re going to simply take our chopstick
and gently press the seeds into the peat
medium just just about a quarter an inch
like i said
you can push them right down
and then after they’ve been pressed down
you just take the back edge of the
chopstick and you tamp them down
and that’s why i really like this
chopstick it’s kind of like an
all-purpose tool for poking holes into
the medium grabbing your seeds and then
tamping them down at the end and now
we’ll do the exact same thing for the
other varieties
now after you place your seeds it’s very
important that you don’t over moisten
any of them you don’t want them to be
sopping wet however in this case they
seem a little bit on the dryer side so i
actually like using a turkey baster just
to put a few drops on each individual
peat pellet just to moisten the tops a
turkey baster is actually a really great
tool to use to water your fragile seed
starts when starting your seedlings in
standard six cell trays or other trays
like this we’re going to approach things
differently we are still going to use
our chopstick however instead of
fluffing up the top we’re just going to
poke two quarter inch holes
in every single one of these individual
trays and that is going to be where
we’re going to place our seeds
and just like the peat pellets we’re
going to use our chopstick to gently
place the seeds in the holes that we
just punctured
and then we are simply going to tamp the
mixture
down
you may want to check it over with your
finger just to make sure that everything
is sealed
and that there are no gaps but don’t
press hard there’s no need to firmly
compact the medium you want it to stay a
little bit light and loamy there now
that i showed you how to do that as a
sample we are simply going to do that to
every single variety in this tray all of
the seeds have been planted tamped down
and moistened to the proper level now we
just have to wait for the seeds to
germinate and one of the critical items
that you need for the most success is
one of these seedling heat mats and
that’s because warm weather crops like
tomatoes peppers cucumbers squash
watermelon etc they require warm soil
temperatures in order to germinate and
most of our houses particularly the
floors and countertop surfaces aren’t
warm enough and germination can take way
too long or it could fail altogether so
make sure to get yourself a seedling
heat mat if you want this exact one it’s
linked in my amazon storefront in the
video description it’s very inexpensive
and this is this is a 10 inch by 21 inch
basically a seedling heat mat it’s
perfectly sized for one of these 72 cell
trays these typical trays that you can
buy at pretty much every big box store
now using these seedling heat mats we
can expect tomatoes to start germinating
in as little as five days and most
should be up within seven to ten days
however it is very important that as
soon as the tomato seedlings start
germinating you quickly move them into
direct sunlight either underneath grow
lights or in front of a very sunny
window because if you’re not in very
strong sunlight with this heat mat on
the bottom they will become very leggy
and they will grow too tall and you will
have to throw them out so it’s very
important that you monitor this every
single day look for germination and when
the first bits of germination start you
need to move them under lights or in
front of the sun or alternatively just
keep them in a sunny area or underneath
grow lights at all times once they
germinate you can immediately remove the
seedling heat mat because too much
bottom heat will make them leggy and
that is not what you want you only use
the seedling heat mat until the first
handful of tomatoes break the ground and
start germinating another thing you can
do is you can place one of these domes
that come with the trays on top of it
and that will hold in some of the
moisture and prevent evaporation if you
choose to use this dome you’re going to
want to vent it daily to let fresh air
in and not create an anaerobic condition
where you’ll start getting rot and
damping off disease so i usually only
use this lid for the first couple days
and when i see the very first ceiling
break ground i immediately remove it and
i don’t use it anymore so now i will
wait for all of the seedlings to
germinate and once we have germination i
will follow up it’s tuesday february 2nd
and i wanted to give you an update on my
seedlings so you see how they behave in
the two different mediums now some
people claim that they don’t really care
for the peat pellets and i don’t
understand why i happen to love the peat
pellets and one of their benefits is how
quickly seedlings germinate in them you
can see seedlings are coming up all
throughout the peat pellets i count at
least 13 seedlings growing in the peat
pellets here you can see the various
tomato plants starting to break the
surface of the peat pellets they’re all
looking good and because they already
germinated it’s now time to remove them
off this heat mat and to just put them
in a sunny location and not have them on
bottom heat because bottom heat will
make them grow very quickly and if
they’re not in very strong sunlight they
will get very leggy so now is the time
that we move them into the strong
sunlight and get them off that heat mat
as for the normal seed trays i see one
has just germinated right here i see
another one has just germinated right
here and then i see all the way over
here i see another one has germinated in
this cell
right there you can just make it out
it’s just broken the surface other than
that i i do not see anything else that
has broken the surface in these seed
trays so we will have to give it a few
more days before everything germinates
it’s now february 15th and as you can
see every single cell has a plant
growing in them with most of them having
two plants i had very high germination
rates using this method and it has been
tremendously successful one thing i want
you to notice is the difference in
leaves on these plants when seedlings
germinate the first set of leaves are
typically elliptical and do not match
the rest of the leaves on the plant this
first set of leaves that you can see
right here are known as the false leaves
and their only purpose is to break
through the top of the soil after
germination after the set of false
leaves the next set and every set after
will be the true leaves here you can see
right here the true leaves which are
jagged and more closely resemble the
classic tomato leaf pattern we all know
once your seedlings develop this first
set of true leaves you can begin
fertilizing them for fertilizer do not
use granulated organic types of
fertilizer they require the soil
microbiology to break down the
fertilizer to be usable by the plants
and there is no real soil microbiology
in these little seedling trays so
granulated organics are of little to no
value what you need to use at this stage
are water-soluble fertilizers because
the nutrients are fully digestible and
available i discourage the use of
water-soluble organics like fish
emulsion at this stage because they
smell terrible and they will stink up
your house if you’re starting your
seedlings indoors and they can attract
pests that can damage your fragile
seedlings if you leave them outdoors the
best thing to use at this stage are
actually water-soluble synthesized
fertilizers like miracle-gro
water-soluble crystals because they are
odorless and won’t attract pests i
recommend buying those fertilizers and
using them at one-quarter to one-half of
the recommended dosage on the back of
the package do not use full strength
dosages until the seedlings get to be
three to four inches tall and have
multiple sets of well-developed true
leaves if you want more information on
fertilizing i will link to a quick
two-minute how-to video above for my
second channel two-minute garden tips
and that right there is pretty much
everything you need to know to start
your own annual vegetable garden from
seed if you have any questions please
ask them in the comments below and i
will do my best to answer them as best
as i can so everybody thank you so much
for watching this video if you found it
helpful please make sure to hit that
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of the products that i use in my garden
they are all linked down below in my
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while you’re there for custom merch
thanks again for watching and i hope to
see all of you again on the next video
dale what’s all that crazy stuff falling
from the sky out there
oh that looks terrible oh why would
anybody want to have any fun in that
what do you think buddy
oh dale has never seen snow before
this is his first time ever seeing snow