Starting your own veggie seeds

Some of us have success at this and some of us don’t. Follow a few simple requirements and you can be very successful at this. You need a few materials, soil and seed. You can use pots that you have as long as you sterilize them. You do need to be sure you get a very fine-textured, well-drained soil. Fine textured soils are lighter soils which makes them able to drain quickly and still retain enough moisture.

Before starting your seed, take a look and consider what your zone might be. We are in zone 5. You need to find out when the average last frost date happens in the spring. In order to ensure that your transplants are placed in the ground at just the right time, look at the seed you want to start to see what the requirements are you must follow. Say you want to start bell pepper seeds. You need to count back from the last freeze date eight to 10 weeks. This would be the date you start your seed germination.

Using a sterile container with a sterile fine-textured soil, place that mix in the pot(s) or flat(s) and moisten the soil and let it drain before you put in your seed. Otherwise, your seed will float. Place the pepper seed on top of the soil and press firmly or place about ¼ inch of soil over it.

The full article is available in our e-Edition. Click here to subscribe.