Best Way to Sow Seeds Indoors

Raising seedlings indoors is an option. If you- need only a few it’s easy to find them ready-grown at the nursery. If you want them in numbers – and you do, I hope – it pays to buy seed and raise them yourself. (If you don’t enjoy it, it doesn’t pay, no matter how much less it costs.)

Buy good seeds. Read all you can about the many varieties and order early, as soon as the catalogs come in, because choice varieties sell out fast. If you have the seeds before the time is right for sowing, keep them in the refrigerator (not the freezer).

You will need:

• Containers. A few flats or plastic trays, no more than two to three inches deep. You can make this operation as simple or fancy as you wish. Cut-down milk containers and foil trays from coffee cakes and TV dinners used to be fine, but garden centers carry a wide range of containers and even complete starter kits. (Note: sterilize before reusing containers.)
• Planting medium. Unless you plan to grow on a large scale, I strongly recommend a commer­cial mix. I have had success with soilless Jiffy-Mix (principally peat moss and vermiculite, with some nutrients), but new products are coming out all the time, and brand names may change. The chief benefits are that the particles are of uniform size and the product is sterile—no weed seeds and a reduced chance of disease.
• Labels. Some kind of labeling is essential, but there’s no need to be fancy—this is a very temporary home for the seedlings. Three- to four-inch white plastic labels move easily in damp mix. Use a waterproof pen.
• Water-soluble fertilizer. This is necessary when seedlings are in a soilless mix. Use at half (or even less) the strength recommended on the container, and use at every watering once the true (recognizable) leaves appear.

Water and drain the mix before sowing. Sow as thinly as possible in shallow rows, marked by pressing lightly with the edge of a piece of wood (a pencil will do). Sprinkle a little dry mix over the seeds unless instructions say not to cover.

Germination can take place in anything from four or five days to two weeks or more. Keep the surface of the mix damp at all times. Once the first pair of leaves is visible, good light is a must. If you are growing under artificial lights this is taken care of, but on a sunny windowsill, for example, containers must be turned regularly or the seedlings will be lanky and will “lean” hopelessly in one direction. Seedlings should be “pricked out” into containers affording more space for each one. I use a coarser plant mix at this stage—usually ProGro.

After that, it’s a matter of providing food and light until they can safely go outside to be hardened off before planting in the garden for bloom all summer.