Starting seeds. The easy way - and the cheap way

With vegetable gardening the hot new thing, you may want to try starting seeds this month.

I just did it with my preschool daughter (at right) and in the process, kept thinking about ways to make it easier. I do, after all, blog about easy-care gardening and I had to admit - this wasn’t a "plant it and forget it" kind of thing. But I did figure I could make the process more streamlined for those wanting to try it - what with vegetable gardening being a popular way to grow your own chemical-free produce for less and folks paying attention to the Obamas’ new White House Vegetable Garden.

The way I see it, you can start seeds the really easy way, but it’ll cost you more, or the slightly less easy way  — but it’ll cost you less. 

EASY (BUT MORE MONEY)

Of course, the easiest way to do everything these days is to just order it all online. Yes, it’s also the most expensive, so if you want to save money, skip to the next section.

I suggest you start by going to Google. Type in "seed starting supplies." You’ll come up with a bunch of catalog companies like Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Harris Seeds, Home Harvest Garden Supply, Growers Supply, Burpee or Park Seed. At any one of those sites, just buy the following supplies:

Supplies

Tabletop or freestanding grow light system/stand/cart ($60 and up, depending on how fancy the setup is).

Growing kit that includes soilless potting mix pellets, self-watering mat, seed cell tray, plastic dome, plant labels and seeds ($20 to $60). Some have heat mats, some don’t. The heat mats are supposed to make your seeds grow faster and healthier, but I’ve never used them and my seeds have always started fine. If you’re growing seeds in a cooler place and want to make doubly sure they germinate, go ahead and spring for the heat mat (if your kit doesn’t have one I found them sold separately between $26 and $28 at Planet Natural and Amazon).

Seeds (a few bucks a seed packet). Burpee says the best ones to start this early (Feburary) are swiss chard, broccoli, peppers, tomatoes and eggplant.

Light timer (Harris Seeds sells one for $12.25; Home Harvest sells one for $16.95).

Seed sower (I wish I had one for my daughter when she tried to plant the smaller seeds in the soil, but really, it’s a matter of preference. Burpee sells one for $1.95).

Trigger mister bottle, for watering new seedlings without drowning them  (Home Harvest sells them for $3.49).

Sharpie-type indelible marker (for writing on plant labels or the cell trays. Burpee sells them for $1.97 each).

Instructions

Read your gardening catalogs and wait for above materials to arrive. When they do, ollow the instructions that come with the products. The general overview, however, is that you add the required amount of water to the soil-plug-filled cell trays (until the soil is damp, then plant several seeds per cell, lightly covering them with some of the damp soilless mix. Put the plastic dome on the cell tray, set a light timer so that it remains on for 12 to 18 hours a day. Then leave the seed-starting station and go grab a beer. To keep soil damp, spray with mister bottle as needed.

SLIGHTLY LESS EASY (BUT LESS MONEY)

It should be noted that just about all supplies above (except for the grow lights and stand/cart) can also be bought at Home Depot, which is what I did.

I just followed the seed starting demo at the front of the store:

"Burpee Complete Growing System," said the sign, with the prices broken out for each of the components:

Supplies

Starting kit (Burpee Ultimate Growing Growing System). $19.95.

24-inch metal wire rack $19.95 (I skipped this since I planned to use a wire rack I already had at home, along with the plastic tie wraps (as seen in the display, to attach the top of the flurorescent light fixture to the bottom of the above wire rack shelf).

15 watt, 18-inch-long Philips plant & aquatic light (look for the green package). $7.97.

32. oz spray bottle (with the potted plants display at the front of the store). 96 cents.

General Electric 18-inch fluorescent under-cabinet light fixture. $9.77 (OK, this wasn’t on the sign. But it should’ve been. I had to go hunt it down in the store myself. Got detoured in the "shop light" aisle, with a fixture that not only cost $30, but which the Home Depot Guy and my husband said involved "hard wiring," "electrical tape" and a bunch of other stuff I immediately tuned out. Turns out the fixture I wanted, which plugs directly into the wall and has an on/off switch on it, was at the back of the store with home lighting fixtures, not commercial-grade light fixtures (in a completely different part of the store, more toward the front).

Now, this project would’ve taken me about half-an-hour to an hour to do (trip to the store included, and I was already there to buy a curtain rod) - except for the light fixture setback and one more thing: attaching the fixture to the shelf above. Because the folks at Home Depot had been able to attach their fluorescent light fixture to the underside of the metal wire shelf above using plastic tie-wraps, I assumed there were hooks or another device on top of the fixture that would allow for this. Nope. It just came with two holes, two screws and mounting instructions. Now had I just followed the directions and borrowed my husband’s cordless drill, this part of the project could’ve been over in 5 minutes My husband thinks the Home Depot People drilled holes into the fixture at the store so they could attach it with the tie wraps. But instead, because for some odd reason I’m averse to using power tools (probably because of my klutziness…I’m afraid I’ll lose an eye), I waited 20 minutes to a half-hour trying to figure out an ingenious way to attach the fixture to the metal shelving unit before giving up and watching my husband attach it in one minute with a cordless drill to the underside of wooden shelves in the basement. So… lesson learned. Just follow the instructions and use the screws. The only thing I haven’t done yet is put the light on a timer. Gotta do that soon. It’s a pain in the butt to remember to turn the lights on in the morning and off at night (I don’t need one more step in my daily routine).

And there you go - loads of family fun! Looking back, however, I’m really glad I did it. My 2 1/2-year-old asks me daily to "go see the plant babies" and there’s discernable progress each and every day. She mists the babies when they look dry, talks to them and pets them. She studies the seed packets, looking at the sprouting seeds and then looking back at the pictures of the plants they’ll grow into. But that’s life — and gardening — in a way. It never goes as planned, but you’re always glad you did it instead of say, watching TV. It’s kind of like choosing to participate in life.

Have you involved your children or grandchildren in your gardening? About.com Gardening Guide Marie Iannotti wrote a great post on it this month, called Raising Gardeners. Also check out the Martha Stewart Living write-up on starting seeds with kids Or, write in a tell me about your own experience!