Germinating seeds indoors

Here is a fun and easy way to germinate seeds indoors. I used a carboard egg carton, filled it with home made soil-less soil, (perlite, peat moss, vermiculite mixed in equal parts), add a stick for a lable as well as a make shift tent pole of sorts and covered it with plastic wrap. The plastic wrap holds in the moisture and in about 4 days you will see the plants starting to emerge!

Indoor seed starting update 2 weeks after planting seeds - 14 days later...

Indoor seed starting update 2 weeks after planting seeds - 14 days later...

Starting seeds indoors with fluorescent lights for transplant into raise...

2 days after starting seeds! Take a look at the germination



My indoor seed starting trays and plant markers

Here you can see some of the seeds I used in my seed starting trays.

For  my plant name labels I used paint stir sticks that I broke.

Seeds ready to germinate under a 4 foot flourescent light ballast. I have one warm and one cool bulb that come on for 18 hours.

Here is how I broke the paint stir sticks to use as my plant name markers.

Seed packets and what the seeds look like that go into your garden

I recently startedplanting seeds indoors to get ready for the spring growing season here in Arizona. I thought I would post some  pictures showing what the seeds actually look like inside the packets.

The indoor seeds starting trays are doing great!

I have to admitt I'm surprised at how fast the seeds have germinated. Everything is filling in nicly, except the cilantro. The cilantro hasonly produced 1 sprout so far. It's only been about 5 days,so they still have a lot of time to do their thing.

I hope to post some images I took on day's 1 & 2.

Seed starting indoors: Day 3

Update on the seeds I am starting indoors. We are currently on day 4, however I have yet to check on them. Day 3 results are asfollows:

Tray 1
---------
Okra
Oregano

Tray 2
---------
Purple basil
Catnip
Spinach

Pretty happy with these results. I stated to see okra on day 2. I can't wait to start more :)

Pumkins growing from seeds in compost pile

I uncovered the compost pile today by removing a thin layer of newspaper from the top. Just before I was going to turn the pile to get some oxygen into the organic ingredients, I noticed something really cool! It looked as it something had sprouted from within the compost pile. At first glance it  looked like it was a sun flower, however, I now think it is pumpkins we thew in the compost pile after Halloween. The roots were all the way from the bottom of the pile and I kept finding  more and more seeds sprouting as I dug into the compost pile. I thought this was so interesting and cool! These seeds had grown from within our compost pile! Covered by almost 2 feet of organic material, these seeds sprouted and grew through the maze of produce and yard waste and were just about to find away past the top layer of newspaper. I suppose that says something about the quality of good compost :)

Notice the two seeds near the middle left.

Two more seeds that have sprouted.

Just for fun I pulled some out of the compost pile and decided to see if they would grow in a container below the compost pile.

Our raised bed gardens are doing great here in Arizona

Just took a stroll through the garden and have to report many plants starting to grow. Much better results than I was expecting. This is our firts attempt at gardening and we could not be more happy with our current results. I will post pictures as soon as I can.

So many seeds sprouting in our garden

The heat here in Arizona has been on a steady increase for some reason. Nothing record breaking, but still way above average. While checking the saoker hose in our raised garden beds today, I noticed a lot of seeds have started to sprout. Both our wild flower and our vegetable seeds are doing extremly well as far as I can tell. I've noticed the sun flowers, peas, corn, lettuce,spinach, lima beans and a few others have broken through the top soil to see the sun!

I hope to have some images to share with you in a day or so.

Lettuce seeds are sprouting after four days!

Here is a picture of our lettuce seeds that started to break through the top soil after only four days! This is my first time growing  lettuce, so I'm not sure if this is normal for lettuce. I can say it seems like it sprouted fast. I'm starting to see many more seeds sprouting and reaching for the sun in the past two days. I started this garden on October 22nd, 2010.

The picture is blurry, but you can see the bright green in there!

Lettuce seeds sprouting already!

Noticed today that we have a ton of our lettuce seeds sprouting and breaking through to see the sun! Only a few days and these guys are already growing strong. I'll have a photo or two to show everyone tomorrow.

A couple images of our newly planted raised gardens

I plan on taking better pictures and some video of our raised garden beds, however this is all I have at this time. We used some paint sticks to label our seed rows for fun and because we had so many left over from our interior house painting project.

This our smaller raised garden bed, it is half the size of our second raised garden bed. Notice the newly added metal stakes on the outside of the raised bed, they are 36" concrete stakes that have six or seven holes pre-drilled into them which made it great for driving screws into the raised bed frame. Without these large metal stakes the bed would surely bow out and eventually break open!

This our larger raised garden bed which is 10' x 3' x 18". Here you can see the paint stir sticks used as plant and seed markers for the time being.

Blue Lake bean seeds sprout in 2 days!

Something told me today to check the seeds in the zip lock baggies for roots...I am happy to report that the Blue Lake bean seeds have germinated very well in ONLY TWO DAYS!

I have added these to the mini garden and moved it to an East/ South East facing window. I hope to have more great news soon on the rest of the seeds.

Wet towel seed germination technique

Since our outdoor attempts to germinate seeds were dashed by our lovely summer sun, we turn to a very easy and effective seed germination method inside: Wet towel seed germination

The process is simple. Here's how you do it:

Step one: Gather supplies: Paper towel, seeds, zip lock baggy, marker.

Step two: Place seeds on paper towel.

Step three: Fold the paper towel over seeds and soak with water. Place wet paper towel into baggy and seal the baggy. Write the name of seed and the date on baggy.

Step four: Place your sealed baggy in a dark location and check it in about 3-4 days later for root development. You should be able to see roots growing through the paper towel. If you do not see roots after 7 or 8 days open it up to look at, if there zero roots start over, something went wrong :(
This is very rare however :)

Step five: Plant into soil or hydroponic medium.

EASY RIGHT! :) I TOLD YOU!!!

CHECK OUT THE PHOTOS TO BETTER HELP YOU

STEP ONE
SUPPLIES NEEDED

Paper towel, seeds, zip lock baggy, marker

STEP TWO

Place seeds on paper towel, were using water melon seeds here.

STEP THREE

Fold the paper towel over seeds and soak with water.

(water has always worked so well that I hesitate to change, however you might try a seaweed/water nutrient mix to soak the towel in? Just a thought...)

STEP FOUR

Seal the baggy and write the name of seed and the date. Place in dark location and check within a week for root development.

The next entry will show images of what a successful outcome looks like...

Mini garden just for fun

So here is our mini garden. We did this for a fun indoor experiment, but soon changed our minds and put it where the large garden is since it has no soil yet.

We have:
Row 1: Sweet Basil
Row 2: Cat Nip
Row 3: Sweet 'N Early Cantaloupe
Row 4: Garlic Chives
Row 5: Blue Lake Bush Snap Beans
Row 6: Zucchini
Row 7: Cucumber
Row 8: More Blue Lake / Crimson Sweet Water Melon

Our plan is to transplant these into our garden when they are big enough and when we get some soil. We just couldn't wait to start growing something!

It's been about a week since they were panted. I will post and update with pics when there is any growth.

Basil and catnip sound fun!

While we are in the process of building our Arizona raised bed garden in the sweltering heat of 110+ degree's, lol, we thought it would be fun for all involved to give growing some potted basil and catnip a try in the down time.

It's been about 3 days since we put in the seed and we can't wait for te next 7-10 days to see if we'll get anything :)

I'll try and post weekly updates on these fun items that should be able to grow in the super extreme heat of an Arizona summer.