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How To Start Seeds Indoors
Follow these steps to successfully start seeds indoors for your vegetable garden.
Materials
Indoor grow station
6-cell starter trays
Medium (~3.5") growing pots
1020 trays (or similar)
Humidity domes
Seed starting mix
Raised bed dirt
Organic liquid fertilizer
Instructions
Plan
Plan your garden.
Determine the number of plants you need.
Select your seeds.
Identify the correct time to transplant for each variety.
Plant
8 weeks prior to transplanting, start your seeds indoors.
Moisten the seed starting mix with water.
Fill the 6-cell trays with prepared seed starting mix.
With your finger, make a little indent in the soil (usually 1/4-1/2 inch deep, check your seed packet instructions).
Drop a couple seeds into the hole, cover with soil, and press down.
Germinate
Place trays into larger 1020 tray and cover with humidity dome.
Keep moist with a spray bottle until the seeds germinate.
Grow
Once germinated, remove the humidity dome, turn on the grow lights, and keep watered.
Seedlings should be under the grow light for 12-16 hours a day.
Once their first set of real leaves grows, you can plant them up to one of your larger pots, using the raised bed dirt mix.
You will typically keep them growing indoors for another 6-8 weeks, and up to 12.
Feed
Once planted up into a larger pot, feed the seedlings every 2-3 weeks with a dilute organic liquid fertilizer.
Harden Off
Once the temps are right outside to transplant, begin hardening off the seedlings outside.
Put them outside in the shade for a couple hours a day, for the first couple days.
Add some time in the sun, but keep an eye on them and keep it short if they get super wilty.
Gradually increase the amount of time they are outside.
Once the seedlings are doing fine outside for ~8 hours at a time, they are ready to transplant into your garden!
Transplant
To transplant, dig a hole in your garden large enough to encompass the full rootball.
(For tomatoes, you want to bury them deeply - allowing a couple of the lower branches to be buried under ground as well. This increases root growth.)
Sprinkle a little all purpose organic fertilizer, or worm castings, into the bottom of the hole.
Gently remove the plant from its pot, place in the hole, and cover snuggly with dirt, ensuring to tap all around and remove any air pockets.
Water the transplant to help it settle.
If the nights are still cool consider covering them with a light row cover to help them acclimate to the cooler nighttime temps as well.