Mr. Delong invited me to come speak to the students on seed starting to the LHHS FFA Greenhouse and Nursery Program. Seed Starting is one of my favorite things and one of the things that anyone can do at home to tremendously maximize food production for their family.
I brought a bunch of seeds for cold weather specific vegetables and herbs. I know the 60 degree weather has folks thinking tomatoes, but we are not there yet.
The students planted seed of all of the varieties in flats, watered the flats and put them under the lights. Germination will be about 3-5 days for most of these plants.
photo credit: A. Delong
A week later I went back. I brought some seedlings I had planted prior as the student seedlings were only a week old. Good timing for thinning, but seedlings need to be at the true leaf stage to transplant and these seedlings were at the seed leaf stage.
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- photo credit: A. Delong
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- photo credit: A. Delong
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- photo credit: A. Delong
I will head back in a couple weeks to continue the process. The students will be growing some transplants for use at The Urban Farm. I am grateful for that. Whatever we cannot sell from the farm goes right into The Southeast Ohio Regional Kitchen for donation to hungry folk.
Right now the seedlings need to get a little older, then transplanted into cell packs and left to be watered and fertilized for several more weeks. If you are interested in seed starting, I have a Seed Starting Workshop at Bishop Educational Gardens coming up soon.
