I’ve spent a lot of time talking about seeds starting but not a lot of time talking about types of seeds. And this post isn’t really going to be much about that. If you want to know the differences there are a lot of places to go.  Baker Creek has a decent discussion on their web site, Margaret Roach talks a good bit about it on her blog.

As a general rule, I usually only grow heirloom vegetables myself (again, if you want more of an explanation, I talked about that awhile back here).

But sometimes, there are legitimate reasons to grow hybrid vegetables (or flowers or other things, but this post will be about vegetables because that’s primarily what I grow from seed now) from seed.

As always, it’s all about choice.  Seeds give you that choice. And hybrid seeds offer you choices that heirlooms can’t.

For one thing–and this is extremely important–they can build in protection against disease.  Now for the most part when we’re talking hybrids, what are we talking about? We are not talking about the “parade of horribles” or “frankenfish” or any of the sorts of things you read in the media about genetic manipulation.

What we are talking about on a commercial-scale is what’s been going on in nature–and in backyards–for centuries.  One plant cross-pollinates with another plant and–whammo–you have a hybrid of the two.  If you have a human intervening somehow, you have hybridization.  It’s just that simple.

Now obviously there are a lot of reasons not to grow hybrids. If you like to save your own seeds, you don’t want to grow hybrid plants because the next year’s crop won’t come “true” from seed.

But there are some great reasons to grow hybrids as well, disease resistance being the primary one.  Cool new varieties are the other. I grew the ‘Indigo’ tomato (the one that turns purple when ripe) a few years back.  Its color meant is had more anthocyanins, supposedly a healthy thing for you.  I don’t know about that–I just know it didn’t make it into my “tastes good enough to grow a second year” rotation.

This year the cool new variety is ‘Kalettes,’ available from Johnny’s Select Seeds. It’s a cross between brussel sprouts and kale.  It looks like a cool new crop and I’m sure it would be very tasty. I just know whenever I crow cole crops I have such an aphid problem it’s not worth it. So no ‘Kalettes’ for me!   If anyone tries it, let me know.

So just because something is a hybrid, don’t automatically discount it. It doesn’t mean it’s part of that huge GMO problem.  It just means that folks, working under controlled conditions, did some breeding work. And whatever they created may or may not be better for your garden.  You’ll have to try it to know for sure.

On this Friday the 13th it seems appropriate to discuss a gruesome disease that can affect your precious tiny seedlings after you have so carefully nurtured them.  Once they have it, it is fatal, so prevention is really the only “cure.”  And as I have mentioned in a few prior posts, some seeds are more prone to it than others so it helps to know this in advance.

First of all, damping off is caused by any number of different fungi.  You’ve heard of lots of them and they are the usual culprits behind disease in the garden: alternaria, botrytis, fusarium–and there are lots more!

How do these fungi (or funguses if you prefer) get onto your seeds? Any number of ways. They can be blown there by the wind. They can be carried there in your water. They can be on the seeds themselves. They can be in your potting mix.  If you’re re-using trays, pots or tools, they can be on those implements.  In other words, the fungal spores are pretty much everywhere and very hard to avoid.

They do like certain conditions–cool and damp–better than others.  And of course certain folks will recommend using a fan for circulation around your seedlings. I’ve tried that. I can’t say I think it makes much difference in terms of damping off, but it does help strengthen the seedlings before you harden them off, so if a fan works for you, by all means, try setting one up near your seed starting place.

Some folks will water with different mixes–I’ve read about watering with water infused with garlic or with chamomile tea.  Again, if it makes you feel better, go right ahead.  For me, trying to keep the potting medium evenly moist and not overly wet, and trying to water from the bottom when possible, particularly when the seeds are young, seems to work as well as anything.

There is a product sold particularly for this purpose called No Damp Off. It claims to be an organic sphagnum moss from Wisconsin. I actually do own a bag and for very susceptible seeds, I will lightly top dress with this product. I think the bag I have has lasted me over 20 years (since I try to use non-renewable resources very sparingly!) I can recommend it, with the limitation that I wouldn’t plant directly into it myself.

If you start reading articles for the greenhouse and nursery trade, you’ll see all sorts of technical publications that talk about soil drenches for seedlings.  I’ve attached one from the University of Massachusetts here. But stop just a moment and think about this.  Why are you growing seeds? Surely it isn’t to drench them with commercial fungicides before they even hit your garden, is it? (Maybe it is. If so, you can skip the rest of my post).

That’s not why I grow them. I grow them to get something better than or different from what’s out there in the trade. I grow seeds because I want to choose the varieties that I want to eat. And I grow them because I want to control the process from beginning to end–what goes on those seeds.  And ideally that does not include chemicals or fungicides at any part of the growing process.

So if I lose my seeds to damping off, I may have to go buy some plants at the garden center–plants that in all likelihood will have been treated, unless I can find some that say “organically grown.”

But with any luck, I won’t lose my tender little seeds.  And I’ll have the pleasure of knowing I have grown my own plants organically.

Wouldn’t you think I had said it all by now? I’ve been talking about seeds and seed starting for over a week now, right?

In my post Friday, however, I touched on things like not setting yourself up for failure and about reading the seed packets.  Remember, I’ve been doing this stuff in earnest for 25 years (and as a dabbler since I could walk probably so we’re talking 5 decades of experience).  Anyone who owns 2 books about seed starting (I mean, does anyone even own books anymore and not just use the internet?) has to be pretty hard-core!

That doesn’t mean that seed starting is always hard.  But it does mean that in certain cases–I mentioned a couple last week–you might need to do certain things for your seeds to help them. That’s what this post is about.

The first thing you always want to know is whether you have to cover the seeds or whether they need light to germinate.  Most seeds are fine being covered and being in the dark.  I start most of my seeds in those little coir wafers I mentioned. I just drop them into the holes in the little discs, put them in my dark furnace room where it’s warm, and check them every few days to see if they’ve sprouted.

I do put the discs (which you have to wet so that they expand) into little trays and I cover the trays.  I have re-usable trays for this purpose that I’ve used for decades.

Now clearly if the seeds need light to germinate, I can’t do that. I will go through all the same steps (coir disc in the tray with the plastic cover to retain moisture) but I’ll put the tray in a sunny south window, again checking every few days for germination.

But what happens if your seed package says “needs a period of cold to germinate.”  In that case, you have a couple of options.  Since it’s usually perennials or cold-hardy annuals that have these instructions, you can do whatever you would normally do to start them and then set them in a protected cold place, checking them as you would do any other seeds.  The instructions will often tell you how long the cold period will be, but it is quite often a significant period of cold–a month or more, because what you are trying to do is to simulate the cold dormancy of winter that the seed would have gone through if it remained on the plant out-of-doors.

Be careful if you are using your refrigerator for this cold place.  And extra refrigerator is a great place to do this so long as it doesn’t have fruits or vegetables in it.  Some fruits and vegetables can give off compounds that can interfere with plants, particularly bulbs. But you don’t want to take the risk that an apple or an onion is going to undo all your hard work in chilling your seeds.  Better to find a protected place–even under a flower pot outside–than to risk using your current fridge.

This period of cold is called stratification, or cold stratifying in case you run across those “technical” terms.

But I see I’ve gone on for quite some time so we’ll continue again on Friday about how to protect seeds from that most dreaded of diseases, damping off!

I’ve spent the last week or so talking about seed catalogs and buying seeds.  But what should you do once you’ve got the seeds? How do you go about starting the little things?

Well, if you’ve looked at the catalogs–or even in the stores–you’ve seen that there are a whole lot of things that are often sold with the seeds.  Are any of them necessary?

I would tell you that the only thing necessary is a sterile potting soil without fertilizer. If you can find that, you don’t need to buy anything special. But since that seems to be impossible to find these days, that’s why I buy seed starting soil.  If I can find it, and quite often I can, I buy organic seed starting soil, because for the most part I am growing edibles so I want them grown in organic soil.

If you want to buy one of those fancy tray systems with the wicking mats and the heat mats for your seeds, by all means, go right ahead.  Anything you can do to give your seeds an advantage is fine by me.  If you want the little peat pots, okay–but try to find something a little more sustainable. I was so thrilled a few years when I found little round discs made of coir (the coconut fiber).  Peat comes from non-renewable resources and is acidic. Coir is neutral.  It’s up to you.

In any event, here’s what you need to ask when starting any seeds:

• Do they need light to germinate?
  Do they need heat (or cold) to germinate?
• How long will they take to germinate?
• Are there any other special conditions I need to know about?

All of the information you need to know should be on the seed package.

One thing to pay attention to, particularly if you’re growing edibles. It may say something like “harvest in 28 days” or “harvest in 68 days.”  That harvest is days from germination, not days from planting.  It doesn’t really specify that.

I also doesn’t really tell you that if you’re starting seeds inside (like with tomatoes or peppers) versus what we call “direct sow” (in other words, planting them in the ground–how novel!), it’s really going to take longer, I find, for harvest to occur.  Some things you just can’t speed up. Nature has its own timetable.

In other words, don’t plant the tomato seeds in February in Maine and expect to harvest tomatoes in June. It will not happen. There’s not enough light, heat and sun on the planet or in an electric plug to make that happen!

Finally a word about when to start those seeds. Don’t start them too early. With the exception of peppers, (and parsley, if you’re starting that from seed) most seeds will come up in about a week or so.  Then you’ll have tender little seedlings to nurse along until you can plant them in the garden.

So if you know your last frost date is in May, don’t start tender things in February.  By the time you get them outside, you’ll have bean-pole looking things that are all scraggly and mal-nourished. Don’t set yourself up for failure.