Video: Seed Starting Basics

seed starting, beans
seed starting basics

It’s time to talk about seed starting basics! I know that beginning and seasoned gardeners alike want to hit the ground running. That way, they’re ready for this year’s growing season so that’s the topic for this week’s video.

I should to warn you in advance that it’s longer than most of my videos. Seed starting is such a useful skill that I really wanted to make this an information-packed video. Last week, I asked my Facebook followers what questions they have about starting plants from seed. The response was terrific and so were the questions.

In this video, I was able to answer the majority of them. Some questions were were very specific to an individual gardener’s situation. I answered those directly in the comments of my Jan. 23 Facebook post. I also plan to do some short follow-up videos about seed starting in the coming weeks. I promise to keep you posted.

Because this is a long video, I thought you’d appreciate having a timeline. That way, you’ll know exactly when I start talking about each aspect of seed-starting:

Timeline:

1:58 Information on seed packets
3:49 Seed starting resources
10:43 Susan’s book bonus
11:47 How to test seeds for viability/Germination test
14:05 Seed-starting Q&A begins
14:23 Q. Why start seeds indoors?
16:20 Q. Soil mixes to use
17:11 Q. What to do about fungus gnats?
19:21 Q. How to prevent damping-off syndrome?
20:50 Q. When to use seedling heat mats?
22:17 Q. When do I fertilize seedlings?
22:37 Q. Lighting
24:54 Q. How to harden-off seedlings
26:59 Basic seed-starting equipment
35:08 Seed-starting step-by-step

And finally, here’s the video! I hope you’ll enjoy it and that there’s plenty of information in it to guarantee you’ll be successful. You’ll see links to the other two videos in this series below the video.

Seed Starting #2

Seed Starting #3