Hello! And happy spring! Happy spring for the time being, that is! Next week’s forecast just isn’t going to be all that great! At least we’ll get some moisture. I’m so glad that Mother Nature has finally come to her senses, and has decided to give us a well-deserved break this past week. After all, she owes us – big time.

So – seed starting – have you started yet? You know tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, your cole crops (broccoli, cabbage, etc), some greens, some herbs, some flowers can be started now, if not before. If you are going to start cukes, melons, and summer and winter squash, do wait a while before starting those kinds of seeds. They don’t get planted outside until the weather has settled and the soil has warmed. So they can be started mid to late May.

So – seed starting . . . . . . What are the basics? What do we need?
First necessity – clean, sterile pots or containers.
Second – the right kind of planting mix.
Third – sufficient heat source to keep those seeds and seedlings nice and roasty-toasty warm.
Fourth – sufficient and consistent light source.
If you cannot guarantee these four basics – forget about it.

So let’s take a closer look at these basics. Clean sterile pots or containers. For seed starting, you can use just about any old (or new) container, provided that it has enough drainage holes. These containers can be store-bought or homemade. So – store-bought – real flower pots – round or square, planting trays – any color, or cell packs – those thin plastic, usually black, usually in 6-pack quantities. These cell sizes can really vary from the very small to the very large.

If those seed starting containers are pre-owned – AKA – used – old – recycled – then you have to make sure they are clean and sterile. OK – so they don’t have to shine – spick and span – but they do have to be sterile or sanitized. But please do not nuke them! Do not put them in your dishwasher! I’m not sure they are made from the right kind of plastic to withstand the nuking activity of a microwave, or the super hot water temperatures of a dishwasher.

Instead use nice warm sudsy water and rinse to remove most of last year’s garden dirt. Then let them soak for 10 minutes in a 10% bleach solution.
You know:
- 1 cup bleach to 9 cups of water
– ½ cup bleach to 4½ cups water
– ¼ cup to 2¼ cups water
DUH!!! You get the picture!!! You do the math!!!

Now after soaking the containers for 10 minutes in a 190% bleach solution, some folks will just remove the containers and let them set out to air dry on their own. Other people will rinse off the bleachy residue. I say – whatever!!! Whatever floats your boat!!!

What matters is that those 10 minutes in that 10% bleach solution will kill any kind of harmful fungus that may have been leftover from last year’s garden. And it is that harmful fungus that becomes that fatal fungus that causes damping off disease. This fatal fungus strikes the baby seedlings as they are emerging through the planting mix. This fatal fungus can even prevent the seeds from even sprouting.

Ha! Here you wait for weeks and weeks for the seeds to germinate, and it just ain’t gonna happen! Fatal fungus to blame here – damping off disease! You don’t want to go there! And you don’t want your seeds or seedling to go there either! Because if they do go there, they won’t be coming back! So, bleach those old used, reusable planting pots and containers.

If you want to try newer planter stuff, you can use homemade containers made from recycled aluminum foil baking/roasting pans, fast food containers – either plastic or Styrofoam , plastic or Styrofoam cups, yogurt cups, etc. You can use whatever is big enough, wide enough, and sturdy enough to hold you seed starting mix and the seeds. Just make sure, absolutely, positively, that any of those seed starting containers that you do line up are fairly clean and totally sterile, and have drainage holes on the bottoms. Use a dull knife, a drill, a nail, an ice pick to poke, punch, drill, or melt holes in the bottom for drainage.

More on seed starting next week!!!

But for this week –

Remember – Eat Smart New York!

And – Bye – Talk to you soon!
D