Tips or Tricks

[Bobby Bass]

About that time of year to start planting seeds indoors to get a head start on this years growing season. I thought I would start A TRICK AND TIPS thread. For those who start plants early I have a trick for you. If you go to the store and buy donuts or Danish in them plastic containers the containers can be reused as mini greenhouses. Why buy them when you can get them for free. I simply wash off the labels and then fill with coconut coil or your favorite starting mix. Sprinkle seeds on top, close the lid and there you have a green house. When plants grow to reach the lid open up the lid and let them keep growing. When big enough to transplant pick out the strongest. I start my tobacco and peppers this way and also tomatoes.

So do you have any tricks?

[Bobby Bass]

Next up Grow Lights,

I have a south facing window in my den that I use to start plants with. I have a big shelf at window height then I use glass blocks and put steel closet racks on top to set my plants on. I can stack about three levels high. Above all of this I have a three bulb flood light fixture This year I went out and bought three 15 watt grow lights. I had to buy some socket extenders so the grow lights would screw into the floodlight sockets. Tried them out last night and they are pretty dang bright. I am going to have them on during cloudy days and in the evening to see if they help promote growth.

Any day now I should have some tobacco coming up and I will see if the lights help speed up their growth.

[Bobby Bass]

Raised beds, you hear people talk about them but what are they? Depending on how much money you want to spend on material and dirt a raised bed can be just a couple 2x8’s nailed together to waist high beds that you don’t need to bend over to work. Now that waist high one will with dirt is going to cost you some compared to the shallow 2x8 bed. Either way a raised bed does some or all of the following things. It eliminates the need for tilling, as you never step into the bed thus compacting it. When you fill the bed it allows you too put clean dirt exactly where you want it, not on the paths between beds where you walk and never plant. Weed control is much easier. Containing the crop you are growing is much easier. Harvesting is much easier. You can add fertilizer taylor made for the crop you are growing not fertilizing the entire garden that maybe 30% of that you walk on and don’t grow in.

 

The last few years I have been switching to low raised beds and container growing. A typical 4x8 bed takes twenty bags of dirt to fill or about 500#’s the beds are so fluffy that I can turn them over with my hand or just a little rake. This season I am going to add three more beds which will give me total of 11 and over 50 five gallon containers. Of course if room is not a problem then traditional planting stills works just fine especially for spuds and melons and squash. Just offering other ideas.

[bobberineyes]

I have a waste high raised bed, 4×8  12" deep and it works great, easy to weed and maintain.  Usually in the fall I'll blend in some cut grass with some chopped leaves. I stick to radishes early and then it's full of lettuce, onion and a few peppers, the pails have the bulk of the load. 

Started seeds last Saturday and the tomatoes are already 1 1/2 tall with the jalapeños and bells starting to scrape the surface.  Trying a different light out, someone at work was throwing out a UV light and the seeds are really responding to it.  I had to put small zip ties in when I cover em. 

[smurfy]

Sweet. Looking good boober! I just put pepper seeds and flowers in starting soil yesterday. No light other then the sunlight thru the east window!

 

Gonna us them peppers to make some splendid chili??¿??

[Bobby Bass]

update / reminder on using the miini green houses, as soon as your seedlings reach the top of the plastic lids remove, this will let them keep growing and get the moisture back down.

Edited March 10, 2017 by Bobby Bass
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[Tom7227]

My experience from a long time ago leads me to believe that you don't want to have those lights on constantly.  I was using fluorescent grow lights but had them on a timer and only had them on 15 hours a day.  The setup was in my basement so that was all the light they got.  If you left them on too long the plants got spindly.

 

I also tented the setup with poly to keep the moisture up and hold in the heat a bit.

 

Anyway, that is what I did with tomatoes and stuff 1,000 years ago.