Saturday, February 20, 2010

“How to make your garden grow: Seeds vs. seedlings - Providence Journal”

“How to make your garden grow: Seeds vs. seedlings - Providence Journal”

How to make your garden grow: Seeds vs. seedlings - Providence Journal

Posted: 19 Feb 2010 08:49 AM PST

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Seedlings save work, but growing plants from seed is satisfying and cheaper; plastic spoons, above, make good plant markers.


MCT / CHIAKI KAWAJIRI

Seeds or seedlings?

Those eager to join the vegetable gardening revolution this season have a decision to make.

Are you going to grow your vegetables from seed? Or will you buy seedlings from your local garden center or a farmers' market?

If you are going to grow your own seedlings, it is just about time to get started. The advantages include savings, pride and choice. You can grow exactly what you want, in the numbers you want and you don't have to count on somebody else's idea of variety.

Though seedlings can be pretty inexpensive, selling for a dollar or two, you can buy a packet of perhaps 50 seeds — and a measure of personal satisfaction — for the same amount.

Buying seedlings saves a lot of work, and it can save a lot of disappointment. There are any number of reasons why the seeds you plant won't germinate or won't thrive.

However, unless your garden center buys its seedlings from a dependable local grower, you run the risk of importing diseases from another part of the country. That appears to be how late blight made its way up the East Coast last summer and decimated so many tomato crops.

Most local garden centers are stepping it up when it comes to vegetable variety.

If you want something more exotic, start looking for plant sales in late May organized by garden clubs and organizations that are interested in biodiversity, or just looking for something unusual. These include the Master Gardener's plant sale at the East Farm Spring Festival, Southside Community Land Trust's Rare and Unusual Plant Sale and many others.

A vegetable garden takes a lot of energy to maintain. For many people, it may be wiser to buy a small number of plants in the kinds of vegetables, herbs and ornamentals they enjoy and can maintain than have a large number of straggly plants from seed and be overwhelmed.

But if you are dying to grow Black Pear tomatoes or White Lightning eggplant, you might have to start from seed.

Susan Iglehart of Glyndon, Md., who will start about 20,000 seeds this spring in more than 100 flower and vegetable varieties, says that if you try to start seeds in a sunny window, you are heading for disappointment.

"You can grow a whole garden's worth — hundreds of plants — under a 40-inch fluorescent fixture," she said.

It needs to be suspended on chains, very close to the seed cups so that the plants don't become spindly reaching for the light. The chains allow you to adjust that height as the plants grow. You can buy fancy tiered racks or light tables, but any table will do.

You can buy heating pads to encourage root growth, though that isn't necessary for a beginner, Iglehart said. But a seed-starter kit is a wise purchase.

A seed-starter kit, which includes 48 seed cups, markers and a dome that creates a greenhouse effect, can be purchased from mail-order houses such as Gardener's Supply Co. for about $49.95, and they include a germination mix and irrigation trays to make watering easier.

How many seeds do you plant? If you want just six tomato plants, do you plant six seeds?

"At least double what you want, and the whole pack if you can," said Iglehart. "That way, you will have your choice of the sturdiest seedlings, and you can give the rest away to friends." Seeds tend not to germinate very well the second year anyway.

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