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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Cost to start plants

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  • From: Pat Meadows <pat AT meadows.pair.com>
  • To: Market Farming <market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Cost to start plants
  • Date: Tue, 08 Jan 2008 11:18:09 -0500

On Tue, 8 Jan 2008 08:27:40 -0600, you wrote:

>Regards to the list:
>
>Pat, would you please tell us what seed starting medium you use in your
>flats and how you fertilize to get your "beautiful, stocky, healthy
>seedlings under those lights"?
>

I use all-purpose soilless mix, such as Pro-Mix. The last couple of bags I
bought were another brand, though. I buy whichever brand the local Agway
has in stock.

I fertilize with (I'm embarrassed to say) house plant food while the
seedlings are growing in the house. It's convenient, it's a liquid.

The brand is Schultz, it comes in a dark green bottle, and it's 10-15-10.
I use it at half the strength recommended on the bottle and I fertilize the
little seedlings starting from when they get their first true leaves. I
feed them twice a week.

So this isn't organic....but I don't really mind if my seedlings are fed
non-organically until they go outdoors. I'm not selling them or the
produce, I don't have to be 100% organic.

I'd like to use fish emulsion in the house but (a) it smells and my
seedlings are in our living room and - worse - (b) it makes the cat try to
get at the seedlings and dig them up.

It's important, I'd like to stress, that (a) the lights be on 16 hours per
day and (b) they be only a couple of inches - two inches or thereabouts -
from the seedlings. It's also important to get 40 watt fluorescents if you
can: the 4' long bulbs used to be *only* 40 watts, but now they come in
lower wattages too. The wattage is written on the bulbs.

Ideally, each fixture would have one warm light bulb and one cool white
bulb, but I can NEVER find a warm white bulb. You can also buy special
plant-light fluorescent bulbs but they are very pricey. The ones I use are
(I think) about $1.99 - inflation now has probably brought them up to $2.99
each.

Our lights are hung on S-hooks. The S-hooks are on chains which are hung
from the bottom of the shelves. So I can adjust them easily as the
seedlings grow.

It's good also, to have reflective surfaces shining the lights back on your
seedlings. This can be done cheaply with scotch tape and aluminum foil. I
used to scotch-tape foil on the walls behind the seedling shelves (we had
dark wallpaper in the living room when we moved here), but I don't bother
now because we have painted our living room walls white anyway used
semi-gloss. White semi-gloss paint is a pretty good reflector.

It's also good, if you can, to put several lights together, side by side -
a 4' x 8' piece of plywood on sawhorses is terrific for this use. You get
even more light if you can put several lights together that way. I cannot;
my lights are just one over one shelf. But it's OK that way too.

Some people use a small fan blowing towards the seedlings to make them
stronger and healthy. I haven't done that, but again - these are in our
living room with pretty good air circulation.

The seedlings grown indoors like this need to be hardened off gradually
prior to transplanting them outdoors. Or covered with something protective
(row cover, for instance) when they first go outdoors.

I'm sorry if I'm repeating what everyone already knows. ?? But maybe not,
maybe most of the people here are accustomed to using greenhouses for
starting seeds.

Pat
-- Northern Pennsylvania

Good planets are hard to find; let's take care of
the one we have.




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