Coffee

[digitS']

starting seeds like in an area set aside outside just for transplanting. ...mostly for flowers and not vegetables

A seed bed.

Any that you think it are okay to move as seedlings in a garden row for better spacing, those could have been started in a seed bed. Vegetables like onions, beets and chard should make good choices. Seeds that may have trouble with germination may especially benefit if the plants are suitable for transplanting. We have had a lot of trouble with sunflower seedlings being eaten by critters and they do just fine with transplanting but the attacks are usually so bad that we start them in the greenhouse. Surprisingly, they are generally left alone when they show up beyond the sprouted seed stage.

I hope that you have good production and fun in 2026, GwR.

Steve

 

[flowerbug]

I have had my coffee and I went out with my camera and took a couple of pictures of seedlings next to the house coming up. One is a lupine and the others are I think that plant that came up last year and I did not know what it was and it turned out to be larkspur. It is 41 degrees already and the sun shinning. It is supposed to get to 53 today.

DD and I went to Walmart yesterday and bought a few flower seeds. I am going through my seeds and getting ready to make online orders. She wants to start seeds in milk jugs. I might do a few. I am going to set my greenhouse back up in the kitchen, but I remember reading about starting seeds like in an area set aside outside just for transplanting. I am not sure what it was called. You plant all these seeds in an area and then when they come up you take them and transplant to the area you want. I am not sure what the point is other than I think the ground is soft and easy to transplant. I am going to have a lot of flowers coming up in areas that I will have to just hoe them down or transplant to a better area. I think this idea was mostly for flowers and not vegetables.

if you can find enough square pots that are fairly deep you can put them all in the same area right next to each other and fill them with some potting soil and perhaps a mix of your garden soil and then use your seeds in those pots and remember to water them enough so they don't dry out.

when the sprouts come up you have a chance of knowing what they are and using larger pots means the roots should have some chance of not being too heavily disturbed when you plant them someplace else.

for perennial plants i suggest growing them a few years if possible before planting them out - it will give you a better chance of having them survive plus you get to see how they get through a winter and what they're like (and if you really do want to plant them out at all).