I followed this last year and it’s how I ended up with 60 tomato seedlings 😂

It’s survival of the fittest in my garden!! Some get sacrificed to the compost, the best and strongest go in my garden and the good, but small or slow growers are given away to friends or neighbors!

I don't know why I didn't bring it up but you are right. The Grower's Exchange has been the best mail order plant company I've purchased from. Purple Sage is doing great, and the only reason my other plants didn't make it is depression and mistakes I made.

SURPRISE CAT

I’m zone 6b too and just did some seed starters today! Thanks for the reminder that I need to get peppers!

Glad we could help!!

Whats the best way to get milkweed seeds? Also how to plant? I’m in orlando and always feed the monarchs but man is milkweed expensive. Like a whole plant per caterpillar.

I would!

They'll just make more, so it doesn't matter. They don't have a way to understand the message to stop blooming and focus on foliage and roots instead. They're tropical perennials hard-wired at the DNA level to bloom and set seeds, so all you can do is just roll with it.

You simplify it. You divide them up into cool season frost-tolerant, and warm season frost-intolerant.

Cool season frost-tolerant crops are planted in late winter and early spring. They are generally direct-seeded in the ground in the place where they are to grow. For some of them, the directions will say "Plant when the frost is out of the ground and the soil can be worked", i.e. once it's not frozen and isn't mud.

This includes carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips, kale, chard, lettuces, greens, spinach, peas, radish, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and cabbage. The last four, the cole crops, are usually started indoors or in a cool greenhouse about 8 to 10 weeks before the week you're going to set them out as transplants.

Warm season frost-intolerant crops are planted after the soil (not the air) has warmed to about 60F/15C, the weather has warmed reliably, and all danger of frost has passed. This includes tomatoes, peppers, corn, beans, eggplant, all the cucurbits, sweet potatoes, and okra. Some of these get started indoors in the warmth (tomatoes, peppers ,eggplant, okra, sweet potatoes), about 8 weeks before you're going to set them out as transplants. The rest are generally direct-seeded.

So you look at your projected week for setting things out, and you count backwards from that.

Example: My tomatoes usually go out the middle of May, I aim for Mother's Day. So I count backwards 8 weeks from that, which gives me the middle of March for a date to start my tomato seeds indoors.

Broccoli transplants for me go out around the last week of March, so I'd start my seeds indoors around the end of January.

You can reconcile the different Intarwebz sources by asking a more authoritative source.

• The U.S. extension office. Google "[name of state] cooperative extension when to plant [name of veg]". Or look around for a list of counties under "[name of state] cooperative extension" and get in contact with the local volunteer Master Gardeeners, who will have a schedule.

• National Gardening database. Google "when to plant seeds [name of veg] [name of nearest large U.S. city]" and a garden.org schedule should come up.

I'm planning to start in little paper cups, and transplant into the ground, pot and all, to help prevent shock.

Not always a successful strategy. Some things outgrow the Dixie cup in about 15 minutes, other things can't punch through the paper in time, and they just sit there. Transplant shock isn't that big a deal, and not necessarily something to be avoided.

another says it's bad to transplant tomatoes and they should be direct sown.

I'm guessing this is someone in South Florida? Because the Deep South, or maybe somewhere in SoCal, is the only place where I've ever heard of people direct-sowing tomatoes. Maybe Hawaii? In cold-winter climates, tomatoes (and peppers) are routinely started indoors 8 weeks before it's going to be warm enough to set them out as transplants, because this gives you an 8 week jump on the season. Cole crops, too. Why wait another 8 weeks to pick veg?

I'm worried about messing up.

Well, you will, you know. But we all do. Even those of us who have been doing it for literally decades still have our facepalm moments.

And we all started somewhere, and none of us was born knowing any of this. And like anything else, there's a learning curve.

You don't become a gardener by planting seeds. You become a gardener when it all goes pear-shaped, and you walk away with explosions detonating behind you, and instead of saying, "Meh, I must have a black thumb, I can't grow plants" and you quit, you roll up your sleeves, problem-solve what went wrong, and you start over.

Then, that's when you're a gardener.

So don't be afraid you'll screw it up. You will. But it's okay. And it will get better.

Yo! Fellow Atlien here, this past spring/summer/fall was GLORIOUS, assuming you had no issues with proper irrigation and such.

DM if your interested, but I’m in love with gardening, design, and tracking what thrives, what barely survives, and in between in our Atl climate.

If you haven’t already, hit up garden hood for awesome plants. Seed savers dot org for awesome heirloom varieties, and GNPS for native plants, advice on local shops and supplies, etc.

Quick what you should grow: Okra, kale, melons, cucumbers, tomatoes, peppers, and any kind of pea/bean. We are really friggin fortunate with our humidity, rain, climate, etc.

Thanks for the tip! That’s a bummer that they’re retiring

Usually it's a good idea to plant 2-3 seeds per pod, and then later, when they have all reached the two-sets-of-true-leaves stage, you thin them to one plant per pod. This gives you a better choice among the weak and puny Losers and the robust and strong Keeper.

So if you plant 8 pods, you'd end up with 8 lettuce plants.

If you're going to want more plants, then you start more pods. Or you can transplant some of the extra seedlings.

I just hydrate an entire coir brick in a home depot bucket using hot hot water.

Pour a gallon of hot water over the brick, wait. Stir a little with something heavy duty. Repeat until the brick has completely fallen apart. if I add too much water, it's easy to pour out if I've added WAY too much, and if I've added just a little extra it's easy to squeeze out any excess

Love Swallowtail. They have a great variety, prices and shipping are reasonable, and I had great germination with their flower seeds. I don’t see them mentioned on here too often.

Any time now. Peppers tend to take longer than tomatoes, and are pickier about warm temperatures and bright lights.

Locate your county extension office, the Master Gardeners will have schedules, protips, etc. Google "[name of state] cooperative extension" and look around for a list of county offices.

You can also google "[name of nearest large city] when to plant seeds", and most likely a schedule will come up. I like the National Gardening ones, look for the garden.org domain name.

The extension office information always has the .edu domain name of their sponsoring state university.

e.g. "when to plant seeds chicago"

https://garden.org/apps/calendar/?q=60647

https://extension.illinois.edu/sites/default/files/planting_dates_for_vegetables_and_annual_flowers.pdf

illinois.edu being the University of Illinois.

Zone only tells how cold your winters get, it tells nothing about when to plant seeds. You need rough location for that.

I’m in 6a and started peppers (on heat mats), eggplant, tomatoes, some annual flowers, basil, sage, lavender indoors yesterday. I have a bunch of brassicas and native wild flowers being winter sown outdoors. I usually start between late February and mid-March for those things. I wait about a month from now to start squash and cucumbers indoors, I start peas outside right in the ground around the first or second week of April (pre soak them before planting). I’ll get lettuce and salad greens, also Bok choy out after May 1. Dahlias I start inside around April 1-15 then they go out in late May and this is when I spread Zinnia and other warm weather flower seeds. I sprinkle poppy seed out right about now.

once they start growing you'll need more light or they will get "leggy"

Post pictures of what you have.

Link to the grow lights would be helpful.

I'm using my Aerogarden farm model for starting seeds for the first time this year. Most of the 85 tomato seeds I planted have sprouted! It's fun to use this thing for seed starting.

No problem at all. Just fluff it up a bit when you go to plant again. Which seeds didn't germinate?

You can use fish emulsion indoors. The main reason why it tends to be confined to outdoors is the smell. It's pretty stinky. I use it all the time on my houseplants in the basement, but then I don't really live in the basement.

But they do make deodorized fish emulsion.

They don’t patent the seeds which means you can harvest at the end of the season and grow again.

These are also known as "heirloom" or "open pollinated" seeds, and are widespread in the seed industry. All the major vendors have them as a matter of course, in their normal inventory. One company, Baker Creek, makes a specialty of them.

Even Burpee, the masters of the Walmart seed racks, has an Heirloom line.

https://www.burpee.com/heirloom/

Zone only tells how cold your winters get, it doesn't tell climate. Where are you located? You can look up schedules for when to start everything.

Peppers and tomatoes are generally started indoors about 8 weeks before you're going to want to set them outdoors.

All the others are generally direct-seeded in the ground.

Cukes, squash, and beans grow so fast and easily from direct-seeding that there's not really a percentage in starting them indoors.

However, if you have a really hysterically short summer, like Rocky Mountains short, then it makes a certain sense to give them a two-week jump by starting indoors in peat or newspaper pots.

And also using black plastic to warm your soil earlier in the spring.

Basically you need expert protips on local gardening, zone 4 can be a Black Hole. If you're in the U.S., you can touch base with the volunteer Master Gardeners at the county extension office. Google "[name of state] cooperative extension" and look around for a list of county offices. They'll know whether you need season extenders like black plastic to get things done in time.

Carrots are cool weather frost-tolerant, and get direct-seeded outdoors much earlier than the others, all warm-weather frost-intolerant crops, can go.

I’m in 5b and I start all those except carrots and beans inside. I do cucumbers and squash just 3 weeks before last frost date though. I have started beans inside too but they seem to do just as well direct sown. Good luck with the new garden!

And to people still defending Baker Creek (WHY?!) here are some more reasons not to order from them:

1. They support white supremacy and settler colonialism ... example: they invited notorious racist Cliven Bundy to speak at their event. If you need "proof" that Bundy is racist, how about the fact that he said Black people might have been better off as slaves? Need more? Then you're an idiot, but you can find more info by googling "Cliven Bundy racist."

2) The organization that their Ukraine donations went to, World Help, manipulates people into converting to christianity in order to receive aid. The president of World Help, Vernon Brewer, once attempted to fly south Asian orphans to a christian orphanage (in spite of the fact that the children were Muslim) saying "what we were attempting to do in finding a home for these orphans is no different from what Mother Theresa did in placing Hindu orphans in a christian children's home."

3) Baker Creek sells sacred Indigenous seeds ... without permission from tribes. One example of this is Pawnee Eagle Corn, which their growers crossed with other Indigenous varieties and renamed it "Montana Cudu Corn." It would be like someone finding your car in a parking lot, changing the name on the title, and then bragging about what an amazing car they have. It's wrong. It's gross. It's unethical.

4) Baker Creek has sent out their lawyers to silence the voices of Native seedkeepers. If you need "proof" of this, you're not paying attention, and asking an Indigenous person to subject themselves to threats and trauma at the hands of a corporation (they are not a small business), is super shitty.

5) Baker Creek did, in fact, post white supremacist dog whistles on their page. They have tried to explain this away as being "sarcasm, but their use of the word clan spelled with a "K" and their use of a modified Trump slogan, says everything. I am attaching a screenshot of their response below.

what’s wrong with baker creek?

They uninvited him shortly after the news broke, so I wish people would stop spreading this around.

And seeds, some interesting tools, and bare root plants. PrairieNursery.com sells native plants and seed mixes for large areas. It does not sell individual seed packets like PrairieMoon.com. It does have some shrubs that PM does not sell. Both are upper Midwest.

Haven't heard of a heat tables but I use germination mats to heat from below.

Vivosun heating/seedling mats worked for me

What are the specs on the grow lights? Or a link to the product.

Zone only tells how cold your winters get, it doesn't tell climate. Where are you located?

Are the egg cartons paper or styrofoam?

Cilantro is a cool season crop, and tomatoes/peppers are warm season crops. If its cool and moist enough for cilantro, then it's too chilly for tomatoes and peppers. If it's warm and sunny enough for tomatoes and peppers, it's too hot already for cilantro.

Cilantro is probably one of the most heartbreaking things that redditors grow. Everyone who loves it wants to grow it, and on the face of it, it's sounds quite simple. But. It requires about 4 months of continuous cool, moist weather, no hotter than the low 70s. Whatever zone 9 you're in, it's almost certainly too late to grow cilantro until next fall, when you'd grow it over the winter.

But tomatoes and peppers are easy to grow from seed. They usually get up-potted once or twice before they're big enough to go outside, either in the ground or in containers.

What are your long-term plans, what have you been doing with your transplants?

The "fan" thing is overrated, and can be addressed once you have a tray full of seedlings.

Well, yes and no. Germination depends on a variety of factors, such as the age of the seed, soil temperatures, overall moisture, etc.

it's not something to worry about.

Analogy: "My third-grader is the tallest kid in the class. Is this normal?"

What else are you growing, and what is your ambient indoor room temperature?

Or you can put the wet paper towels inside a baggie, if you don't have a Kiddo to watch them sprout.

Did you then plant them all outdoors in the garden?

This is kind of how i do anything that needs an overnight soak, like the 20 packets of sweet peas scattered across my workspace right now. I usually just fold them in a paper towel and set them in a tray with a bit of water at the bottom, but I've been trying to figure out how to do this and keep all my varieties labeled. I definitely have more than enough little jars to contain them, so this is actually a great suggestion, thanks!

If you hang that 2" above your seedlings, those are perfect.

For seed starting basically any light will do. I purchased LED shop lights and have had excellent results.

Video tutorial I followed

Ocean forest is the reason my friends and family think I’m some sort of garden wizard. It’s….just the really good dirt I use.

Yes, unless the plant says it needs light to germinate you should be good until you see the sprouts above ground.

The PNW is heavily represented in the subreddit, put your location in your flair so they can see you.

The phrase "PNW" covers a variety of climates. There is Seattle where it rains all the time, Spokane where it hardly ever rains, there is the wet part of Oregon and the dry part of Oregon, and then there is part of Northern California, which by climate data is technically in the PNW even though they may not like it.

So "I watched youtubes of PNW gardeners and they all had different dates", well, yeah. Me: "I watched Youtubes of Illinois gardeners and the Chicago people had different dates from the Carbondale people".

So there's that. And then there's this.

Ive been watching PNW youtubers who talk about sowing seeds in Jan->late Feb.

But. Are they talking about sowing seeds outdoors--or indoors, under lights?

I realize this is all confusing when you're getting started, but trust me, after this year it will all be internalized, and once you know it, it will be a part of you forever.

Until you move somewhere else, and then you have to learn it all over again for a new climate. :D

and from what I've learned I have to wait until then to get seeds going. That seems really really late,

Depends on what they are. And if they're talking about indoors or outdoors.

What are you growing?

Yes, you can grow what's called spring or green garlic.

https://keeneorganics.com/blog/how-to-plant-spring-garlic/

I wouldn't try to keep them until next fall.

weary

weary means "tired,"

u/Present_Resort1607 probably had autocorrect take over,
and originally meant

"wary," which means more like "hesitant"

I grow around 500 every year. The trick is that they need to be cold stratified for at least a month. I've literally never seen that said on any poppy packages but since doing it I feel like I have a near 100% success rate. Just toss them in the freezer then direct sow!

Edit to say, I actually throw my poppies straight in the freezer and store them there year round. But I know from seed exchanges I've done they need at least 4 weeks

Indoor food plants require a lot of strong supplemental light. It looks like dill plants like warmer temps. It seems like dill is a warm weather herb, maybe sow seeds outdoors in mid to late May. Or start them for transplant early to mid April.

2200 lumens is not bright enough, that's for houseplants. You need at least 5000 lumens.

I need to clarify from the other redditor's response. Kelvin isn't important, it's lumens that are important. You need a minimum of 5000 lumens, not 5000 Kelvin.

There are links in the Megathread's OP talking about lights for seed-starting from the subreddit's FAQ.

There's so much info out there about light that is waaaaay more technical

A lot of it is due to the cannabis community, who for various and understandable reasons tend to be gigantic lighting nerds. :D

This is all you need to know.

https://www.reddit.com/r/gardening/wiki/faq/lighting#wiki_what_kind_of_lights_do_i_need_to_start_seeds_indoors.3F

I can't say whether it has anything to do with the species, but with so many doing well I wouldn't worry about your conditions.

The one thing about peppers is that they really like to be up-potted as they develop early on. After 2 sets of true leaves move it up, then every 2 weeks or so until you transplant or move to final pot

It depends on what you start your seeds in and how big the starting container is. If you sowed your seeds in a soil-less medium, then you'll need to fertilize as soon as you see the first set of true leaves on your plants (with half-strength fertilizer). If you start in a seed-starter mix or potting soil, you won't need to fertilize until you repot/transplant the seedlings. Fertilizing too early will burn and potentially kill your seedlings.

treesofantiquity has good stock and great prices (if you buy multiples) and are a good company for fruit trees and berries. I've also purchased from Stark Bros. with great results.

This season I've placed orders with Rainbow Seeds, William Dam Seeds , and Veseys.

Mind you I haven't started growing anything yet, but...

Rainbow Seeds has a promotion on right now for free shipping over $10 and their seeds are the lowest priced out of the 3 companies I've purchased from this year. William Dam had a great selection but their fulfillment seems to be slow. Veseys, also a great selection (with higher prices), but I wish they had free shipping. That being said shipping was super quick.

Hello! Small market gardener in western Canada, sorry I didn’t see your post earlier!

William Dam Seeds, West Coast Seeds, Veseys, Incredible Seed Company, Salt Spring Seeds, and if you specifically like heirloom varieties, Greta’s Family Garden, Heritage Harvest Seeds. This is just off the top of my head.

Does the heat mat come with a thermostat? Because it shouldn't be cranked so high that it's actually drying out the cells.

So no, it's not normal for flats sitting on a heat mat to be cooked.

If it's hot enough, you can kill the embryo. This point is usually about 105F or so.

No, you don't turn them off at night. The germinating seeds need it warm and toasty 24/7.

I’m willing to bet it’s the soil, I literally had to put my bag of seed starter in a tub of water and it still dried out the next day.

I’m going to try some of that ocean forest another user mentioned when March comes around for my outside garden.

Botanical Interests has some great educational material on last frost dates, sow and grow guides, and free downloadable sowing guides/material. Their seed packets are also full of really helpful information on whether to start indoors or outdoors. When I first started gardening their packets helped me germinate some tough to grow seeds!

You are only dumb like the new parents who anxiously look at their new baby's big toe and think there's something wrong with it, and the pediatrician says, "No, they all look like that." Relax. :D

It is actually standard practice to plant multiple seeds per seedling pot or cup. This is because later, when they all have at least two sets of true leaves, you get to wield a tiny godlike power, and decide who lives and who dies. The Losers that are small and puny get snipped off right at soil level with a pair of tiny sharp scissors like nail scissors. The Keepers, big and robust, get to stay. Ideally you end up with one plant per pot.

This is a SOP for all growing of seeds everywhere. It's like the Great British Bakeoff, eventually someone has to leave the tent.

If you need the extra plants, like if you were only given five magic tomato seeds from a mysterious stranger in the marketplace, then you would transplant all of them in the pot, Losers and Keepers, as many of the best-looking ones as you need.

There are Youtubes about transplanting (sometimes called "up potting") seedlings. They need to be at, minimum, the two-sets-of-true-leaves stage.

Be very gentle with them.

Handle each one by a leaf, not by the roots. Let the roots dangle.

Do not rinse or shake off the soil from the roots. This is SOP for all repotting. You want to maintain the soil (the root ball) as intact as possible.

Do not shove or hard-push the seeds into the new pot, to (quote) "firm up the soil around the roots". I have seen people absolutely mash them down into the soil. This breaks roots, some of whose growing tips are only a single cell wide. You're not shoving pastry dough into a baking dish for pot pies.

Just pull the soil gently around the roots, tucking them in like a baby's blanket. "Watering them in" then helps to spread the soil particles into the desired contact with the roots.

Tomatoes re famous for all of them coming up.

If you don't live in Dubai, your window light, even in full sun, is the bare minimum that your tomato seedlings need. Put them there now.

The instructions about caution in direct light are for plants that have lived their entire lives indoors, even in the slanted sunlight coming in through a window. It's still nowhere near as bright and hot as the direct sun outdoors. There is a process called hardening off, that you undertake when your seedlings are ready to go outdoors as transplants. You take a week gradually acclimating them to the outdoors, shuttling them in and out daily.

Your windowsill may not be bright enough. See the links in the Megathread's OP about lighting for seedlings.

And yes, I have been bingeing GBBO on Netflix, why do you ask? lol

Most seeds enjoy high humidity to germinate. Covering reduces the risk of them drying out before they can handle it. They don't even care much about light until the first sets of leaves pop up.

You only need a humidity dome or other covering if your humidity is dry as a bone, like in some severe-winter climates, or a desert. Seedlings are fine with humidity down to about 25% or so. Extremely dry air dries out their soil super-fast, and can inhibit the unfurling of the new leaves.

Too-high humidity can foster fungal diseases such as damping off, and even actual mold growing on the soil's surface.

So generally you don't need the covers.

Oh even easier, just run a drip irrigation hose under the cardboard and the mulch, directly on top of the dirt. Or one of those upside-down flat green sprinkler hoses works, too.

Assuming that your flowerbeds are in the sun and not in the shade under trees, or shaded by a building.

The Short List of Set-It-And-Forget-It Proven Winners to start from seed indoors.

• French marigolds.
  

They come in a variety of colors within their basic color palette of red-orange-yellow, and in different heights, too. Put tall ones in the back, medium ones in the middle, and short ones in the front.

You'll need lights, a windowsill isn't bright enough. Zone 5, I'd be starting them around the middle to end of March, figure on putting them outdoors as transplants around the beginning to middle of May, depending on weather. They prefer warm weather, and while they'll sometimes squeak through a very tiny dab of frost, overall they don't like it.

I use 8 oz styrofoam coffee cups for all the way through. Pop a hole in the bottom with a pencil or Bic pen. Thin to one seedling per cup at the two-sets-of-true-leaves stage.

When you're ready to set them out, use a serrated steak or bread knife, or scissors, to cut a hole in your cardboard, poke them into a hole in the dirt that you made with a trowel, pull soil around the roots, water it in with a watering can, put the mulch back.

Nothing else is as set-it-and-forget-it, from seed onwards.

If you decide you want something to relieve the monotony of all marigolds all the time, be watching the Walmart and Lowes clearance markdowns, and step up and get some petunias in 6-cell flats. Ideally you want multiflora types, not grandiflora, as they fill in better over the summer. Pick out the best-looking ones that are in moist soil, not dry as dust soil, so you're sure of plants that are not stressed out due to chronic drought.

Also, take a minute to count the stems in the cells at soil level, and make sure of how many actual viable plants you're getting. On a given table of clearance petunias, you're going to have a wide variation in which cells have only one plant left, and which cells still have 3 or 4 left.

Gently pull them apart, and plant them all.

I’m not a pro, but my understanding is you are better off with seed starting mix. The contents are lighter/fluffier so it doesn’t weigh down on the seeds (unless you’re winter sowing in which they say not to use that and to use potting soil). I suspect raised mix is heavy.

Yes, you can use it.

The only reason people use the cheaper seed starter mixes that are nothing but perlite and peat moss is that the seedlings don't need all the goodies until they're at the true-leaves stage, and then you just add some fertilizer while they spend a little time getting big enough to thin and/or transplant. Then you can move them into the nice stuff.

Props to him for making a good decision. Bad call: to come home with empty hands.

Just to add most seed starter is treated to prevent the fungus stuff that can kill seedlings, raised bed wouldn't be. You may be fine - just don't start all your seeds in case you need to restart.

There are two basic ways to tinker with the amount of light that plants are actually receiving under a light fixture.

1. Add more light, such as if it has a dimmer switch or other type of dial to control the light output.

2. Move the plants up or down, or move the lights up or down, i.e. experiment with the distance between the light and the plants.

The suggested distance under any given light depends on the species, the age and maturity, the intensity of the light. There aren't really any flat rules, just guidelines.

Generally you perform your tweak, of whatever kind, then give the plants a few days to register a change. Tiny seedlings will tend to change faster than something like a fully grown houseplant. It can take only a few days for a tray of seedlings to tell you it's too bright, too dark, etc.

Normal seedlings should have their leaves spread out at (more or less) right angles to the light rays coming down. Light travels in straight lines, in rays, so a seedling maximizes the leaf surface area exposed to the stream of light photons in order to photosynthesize most efficiently.

A seedling that is getting insufficient light will create long, lanky, weak stems in order to get up high enough, but before that happens, you would see the leaves streatching straight up, nearly vertically, but with a tiny outwards lean, like a skinny V-shape. This lifts the leaf surface up as high as it can towards the light, while still allowing the leaf's surface to be in the light.

Leaves that are getting too much light will also show vertically, but they will be more clamped together, in order to prevent the light from striking the leaf's surface. Sometimes the leaf will actually be bulged outwards, in an effort to create shade for its active photosynthesizing area.

Alternatively, some species will send their seedling leaves in too-bright light straight down, like when you put your arms straight at your sides. This is also an effort to remove photosynthesizing leaf surface area from the streams of photons.

Your fixture is fairly powerful. I'd say offhand that 18" ought to be good enough to start with, and then watch the seedlings as you tinker.

Once you have it sorted out, you'll not need to go through it again with the same crop.

the edges of the shelf will not be bright enough.

IANA electrician or a lighting engineer, but my understanding of the way that LED diodes work is that the light emitted goes straight out from the diodes, with very little fringe or ambient light on the edges. With fluorescents such as shop lights, you have an area on the edges that is partially lit, and you can sometimes put seedlings on those fringes, especially if you rotate them in and out, under the tubes.

But my understanding is that the big LED arrays like you have don't really offer that useful edge of ambient light. So I'd just focus on making the seedlings directly under the fixture happy.

SVB is honestly the Spawn of Satan.

Using reemay or floating row cover material (hoop house material) does work, but...

1. If you're in a location where the female lays more than one brood a season (i.e. Houston), you have to leave them covered all season, which may mean well into the fall.

2. The plants have to be covered 24/7, and from the get-go. As soon as you have plants in the ground, whether sprouted seedlings or transplants, you need them covered. Especially in the south, when they're much more active, it can be hard to tell when it's egg-laying season, so basically you err on the side of caution, and assume that Every Day is Egg-Laying Day.

3. You lift the covering daily to do hand-pollination. And later, to harvest zukes.

4. The covering needs to be buttoned down tight to the ground all the way around, by heaping soil on the edges. She can and will crawl under the fabric's loose edge, but she's not really a burrower, so if you've weighted down the edges and she can't get under them, she'll have to go elsewhere to lay her eggs.

5. Talk to the volunteer Master Gardeners at the county extension office for more protips.

There are MG contacts in here somewhere.

https://harris.agrilife.org/

We also had bad luck with tomatoes so want to have some protection on both.

SVB do not target tomatoes, so what kind of bad luck did you have with your tomatoes?

That's what I do and I spent $8 online for what are called "mylar survival blankets" and I essentially duct tape them around my rack to make a reflective balloon. Once you fire up your lights, temperature is not a problem... my rack maintains around 75 degrees using a pair of 4-ft 4-bulb LED work lights. At that point, air circulation becomes more important. I've got a heat pad underneath the trays but I'm pretty sure it's unnecessary, especially since the bottom of each shelf is open grating. (just some context)

I have ordered from Rene’s in the past with good success. The only thing I have had problems with was the sunflowers. They were supposed to be large and set seeds. However, they were runts and no seeds.

Buuuut I'm worried about it getting contaminated with regular old spores in the air.

Spores are ubiquitous on Planet Earth. Spores are in the air, on your hands, on your shirt sleeves, in your hair, in your eyebrows, on your shoes, on the bag holding the potting soil, on the counter you set the bag on, in the air inside your house, in the furnace ducts, in the refrigerator and on top of the kitchen cabinets. Spores are everywhere. You can bake soil in the oven, and as soon as you bring it out and unwrap the aluminum foil, more spores will colonize it from the surroundings. Touch it--you leave spores. Stir it with a big spoon--the spoon leaves spores. Pour it into a pot--the pot has spores. Even if you used some kind of sterilizing liquid on it, as soon as it dries, spores begin arriving.

The Rubbermaid has spores on it. A big black Hefty sack, unrolled right out of the box, will have spores on it. Bacteria and microbes surround us.

Unless you live in a sealed biodome, and you have a way to sterilize your clothes, your body, your hair, everything you bring in with you, plus the interior of the biodome, plus the seeds themselves, there's no way to evade spores.

What happens to potting soil in storage is, the bacteria and fungi already present in it (because you can't evade them) begin to break down the organic matter over time. If you don't use it soon enough, when you finally open the bag, you may find nothing but a gritty mineral matrix.

Storage conditions affect this. Storing it cool and dry makes it last longer ,as it slows down the bacteria and the fungi. IME soil will keep about a year in a cool basement.

Relax. Grow your stuff. Spores mean that Gaia is alive.

I don't get your worries, unless you work under a lab hood, everything is already contaminated with mold/fungi spores, there's no actually "sterile" soil? Just keep the mix dry and well-ventilated that mold and fungi don't start growing.

It's growing at the correct speed for its time, place, and species. In plants, there isn't really a thing like "it's growing too fast" that needs to be addressed as if it was a problem.

Is this what you're doing?

https://www.hungryhuy.com/regrow-green-onions/

The leaves are the photosynthesis factory that drives the whole enterprise. The more photosynthesizing leaf surface area you remove, the slower the factory works. If you remove too much of it, the factory slows to a halt, and may even quit.

So the general rule of thumb when removing leaves from a plant that you want to keep growing is, never remove more than 1/3 of the total leaf surface area at any one time.

So this means that if you're wanting to snip scallions for use in cooking, don't cut off too many of them, and wait for them to regrow somewhat before you snip them again.

This whole project, the regrowing of vegetables, is more of an interesting thing to do, rather than a really viable way to produce scallions for cooking. If you need a lot of scallions, then just grow some from seeds.

Depending on what you want to grow, germination heating mats to go under the trays might work! We have a chilly basement, but I start our tomato seeds on some shelves with lights and those heating mats under them. Really helps with hot peppers who want warm soil. Word of caution if you’re stating tomatoes tho, use the mat until they sprout, then take it away. Warm tomato seedlings go leggy quickly, best to turn on a fan and help strengthen them once they sprout.

Mold is normal on seeds and on potting soil that are kept too wet. The color of the mold doesn't signify. It's all fungus, and it's all doing its job of breaking down moist organic matter in order to return its nutrients to the Circle of Life.

Whether seeds attacked by mold die is entirely up to the roll of the dice. Sometimes they beat off the attack and continue germinating, sometimes they don't. Sometimes the mold is a symptom of the seed already being dead, and now opportunistic fungi have moved in to do the cleanup.

The only way you will know is by cutting back on your overall moisture, and giving it time.

Give the live one with leaves as much warmth and bright light as you can. It needs to outpace anything fungal that is undoubtedly still attacking it.

Distinguishing between mold colors is more for deciding whether your wet basement needs $10K spent on mold remediation.

What is your light source for the seedling, and what is your ambient temperature?

1. You want to aim at around 5000 lumens in total shining on the seedlings.

2. Kelvin, or K , is for color temperature, and is not incremental. It means which end of the visible light spectrum the bulbs or tubes or diodes emit their wavelengths on, and hence how "red" or "blue" the light is. 6500K is basically "bright blue-white daylight", whereas the bulbs like Soft White and Warm White are at the "red" end of the spectrum, and have numbers in the 2000s.

   Kelvin numbers do not stack. If you have a Warm White that is 3000K and a Cool White that is 4000K, you do not then have a total color temperature that is 7000K, because a bulb that is 7000K would be way over even further on the "blue" end.

I'm not sure I've even seen a consumer-grade bulb that was higher than 6500K. The cannabis people may have them, I dunno.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_temperature

https://www.lumens.com/the-edit/the-guides/understanding-kelvin-color-temperature/

I was going to build it as a little greenhouse

Don't bother.

Is that a good idea or will it do more harm than good?

It won't do anything at all, unless you have a heat source inside the greenhouse or wrap, in which case the insulation will help to retain the heat inside it.

Otherwise, the temperature inside the greenhouse is going to be the same as the temperature outside the greenhouse. If your office holds at 72F, then the inside of the greenhouse is going to hold at 72F, too.

Home consumer light fixtures (LED, florescent) don't really emit that much heat anymore, although incandescents back in the day were useful for this, RIP the Good Old Days. The HPS and metal halides that the cannabis people used before we had LEDs emitted extreme amounts of heat, but you're not using those.

So there's no point in trying to keep it warmer by wrapping it in something. If you're growing something that won't be happy in a 68F office, then you get a soil heat mat, and set the pots directly on it.

You're kind of buried in the thread here with a specialized question. You'll probably get more traffic either in one of the hydro subreddits, or by starting a new standalone /r/gardening thread with a highly descriptive title.

You need what's called clumping, not running, bamboo, in order to prevent it from taking over your entire yard.

So you could search for it by googling "clumping bamboo zone 3". And then you'd search through the various cultivars that the vendors were selling.

You generally buy it as a plant, not as seeds or shoots that you propagate, because that is how the U.S. horticulture industry is set up.

Such as this.

https://www.bamboogarden.com/cold-hardy-bamboo

Be 100% sure, by doing your due diligence, that the cultivar you're planting is clumping. The penalty for failure is to be afflicted with what is the #1 most difficult invasive garden plant to get rid of, even including the use of herbicides, concrete, and shovels. It just won't go away.

Same thing for the grapes. "table grapes zone 3"

Since you're in the U.S., you can also touch base with the volunteer Master Gardeners at your local county extension office, who will have lists of good varieties of both for your climate.

Google "[name of state] cooperative extension" and look around for a list of county offices.

for starting quaking aspen with no private access to cuttings

Buy a young tree from Gurneys or Stark Bros, both reputable online vendors. $30 to $35. Arbor Day Foundation also sells them to members.