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Jeff Farris
11 clips
1.
Here's what you need. A clean McDonald's salad container, a soldering iron, a tray larger than the salad container (mine is an eight inch terra cotta flower pot saucer), some sterile seed starting mix and some seeds to plant.
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Use the hot soldering iron to poke some holes in the bottom of the container, near, but not in, the bottom.
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Do the same to the clear lid. I did six on this one, I think you could double that with no negative effect. The goal is to retain moisture, but some circulation is needed, too.
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Moisten some sterile seed starting mix and add to the tray. One popular brand that is relatively easy to find is "ProMix". Pre-moistening is much easier than getting the material to accept water once it is in the container.
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Pat the soil into the container. The mix should be light and fluffy. You don't want to defeat that by packing the container too tightly, but it needs a little bit of pressing.
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One of my favorite gardening tools is a chopstick. It is perfect to make a small, precise hole to place a seed. I won't take credit for the idea. Nancy handed me one one day when she saw me struggling and said, "Try this."
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Teeny tiny seeds, like tomato, pepper and eggplant can be a challenge for a ham-fisted guy like me. Tweezers make the job so easy.
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Always mark the varieties you've started. Here I've used popsicle sticks to divide the tray in two and indicate which variety is on each side of the divider. I can't eat that many popsicles these days, but you can find the sticks at craft stores, and they aren't sticky, either.
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Put the dome on, set the container into the saucer and you're ready to go.
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Keep the soil moist constantly, but never soggy. In the winter (when you'll most likely be doing this) some heat below the tray will speed the process and improve germination rates while fluorescent light from above will prevent plants from growing leggy. Keep the light as close to the tray as you can get it. I do all my seed starting on open shelves, where the heat from the light below warms the trays above.
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In a matter of days, you seedlings will appear. This is a particularly delightful bit of magic in late February, when the weather outside is frightful.
The first leaves that open are called "nurse leaves" or, more technically, cotyledons. The next leaves are true leaves. Once the first set of true leaves are starting to get some size to them, transfer the plants from the germination tray to larger cell trays or drink cups with drainage holes...but that's another board!
I've used professional plastic seed starting trays for the last several years to start my tomatoes, peppers, eggplant and other vegetable seedlings. They are shallow, black to absorb heat and have a clear plastic dome to retain moisture and generate heat from sunshine and light. They're not expensive, but for some completely unfathomable reason they're incredibly hard for the average home gardener to find. If you do find them, some marketing genius has probably bundled them with a bunch of stuff you don't need to jack the price up.
But, free is even better than cheap and re-purposed is even better than free! Instead of throwing that McDonald's salad container into a landfill, you can make an ideal seed starting tray from it. For that matter, any food container with a clear dome lid will work just the same. Here's how.
Dream It
Do It
Done
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If you don't have a soldering iron I put a barbeque spit (or you can use a pin, or 2 prong meat fork) over and open flame (I use my gas stove) to just melt the holes. That worked for me
be the first to like this.thankyou... such a wonderful way to teach...
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this is a good idea.
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