9/3/2023 0 Comments Planting petunia seeds indoors![]() The growing medium anchors the seedlings' roots and holds water for them. A lamp timer can turn the lights on and off they will need to be on about 16 hours a day. Install it securely in an out-of-traffic spot so the light can hang about 4 inches above the surface of your pots and can be raised as the plants grow. They need not be fancy or expensive, though a couple of standard fluorescent tubes in a utilitarian shop light works fine, if the fixture is hung on chains with S-hooks so its height can be adjusted. Larger numbers will require artificial lights. Light can come from a sunny window if you are only starting a handful of seeds. That's when you can plan on hardening off most transplants to prepare to plant them in the garden. You'll need to know the average frost date for your area-as early as the first week of May near Lake Michigan, as much as a months later in far western suburbs. Use the seed packet information to lay out your timeline. Impatiens, for example, need to be started three months before the last frost date in mid- to late May tomatoes need just six to eight weeks indoors. Some species need weeks longer than others. The basic requirements for any seed starting are time, light, a growing medium, cleanliness, water, and attention. That's why it's often better for beginners to shop for seeds in garden centers, where the packets are available for reading, rather than from catalogs, where the descriptions may be sketchier and assume you have prior knowledge. The best guide to how to start a particular kind of seeds will be the directions on the seed packet. ![]() Start small, with just a few containers and a couple of kinds of seeds, while you're learning the ropes. ![]() Seeds are so cheap that there's no great risk in at least trying the experiment. But others-especially annuals and vegetables that come from places with a longer growing season than Chicago-are best given a head start inside where it's warm, beginning in late February or March for some plants.Įxpert greenhouse growers carefully fine-tune conditions for different species and varieties, as outdoor floriculturist Tim Pollak does when he supervises hundreds of thousands of annual, perennial, and vegetable seedlings every year for the Garden's displays.Ī beginner can start with a dozen plants on a windowsill. Seeds of many species can be sown outdoors once the ground thaws. A seed exists to sprout, and given the right conditions, it will do so with great determination. They fear starting seeds indoors will be too complicated or difficult or messy.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |