I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

On 20 Mar 2004 11:55:08 -0800, (David
Goldsmith) wrote:

I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

Newsgroup hint: it is better to ask 1 or max 2 questions per post.
With more, many will have an opinion on A; 3 will mention B; 1 C; and
no one D. Approximatetly.

A: seed packets or web info will often give directions to "start seed
(indoors) 6 weeks before last frost" or some such. This is primarily
for plants requiring a long growing season and warm ground outdoors --
tomatoes, peppers, many hot-weather veg. You *can* seed directly in
the ground after it's warm, but you lose several weeks of growing
time.

B: Hard to state any rules. Take a look at what plants are sold in
early spring -- those are, mostly, the ones you would start inside and
transplant when it's warm. You don't see corn plants or pea or bean
plants in Home Depot.

C: Cardboard egg cartons are fine (*are* there any cardboard ones any
more?). Just don't let them dry out. Plastic/foam ones need holes for
drainage so the seeds don't rot in a sopping mix.

D: You *eat* cedar? :-)

What ' in earth' are Cedar Sprouts? A trifle woody when chewing?
Best Wishes
"David Goldsmith" wrote in message
om...
I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

On 20 Mar 2004 11:55:08 -0800, (David
Goldsmith) wrote:

I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

Newsgroup hint: it is better to ask 1 or max 2 questions per post.
With more, many will have an opinion on A; 3 will mention B; 1 C; and
no one D. Approximatetly.

A: seed packets or web info will often give directions to "start seed
(indoors) 6 weeks before last frost" or some such. This is primarily
for plants requiring a long growing season and warm ground outdoors --
tomatoes, peppers, many hot-weather veg. You *can* seed directly in
the ground after it's warm, but you lose several weeks of growing
time.

B: Hard to state any rules. Take a look at what plants are sold in
early spring -- those are, mostly, the ones you would start inside and
transplant when it's warm. You don't see corn plants or pea or bean
plants in Home Depot.

C: Cardboard egg cartons are fine (*are* there any cardboard ones any
more?). Just don't let them dry out. Plastic/foam ones need holes for
drainage so the seeds don't rot in a sopping mix.

D: You *eat* cedar? :-)

What ' in earth' are Cedar Sprouts? A trifle woody when chewing?
Best Wishes
"David Goldsmith" wrote in message
om...
I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

David Goldsmith wrote:
I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?
You can sprout just about any veggie that produces above ground
indoors but just about all that grow below ground should be direct
seeded. I use the styrofoam egg cartons, with holes punched in the
bottoms, for just about all of my transplants--- but I do transplant
them to soil blocks when they get four new leaves. They then go to
the cold frame for hardening off and then to the garden. I use the
cartons from "Jumbo" eggs because the dividers go all the way to the
top and I fill them with mix to almost overflowing, this helps in
preventing damping off. I cut off the lid from the carton and use it
for a watering tray beneath the carton------waste not, want not!
Bill

David Goldsmith wrote:
I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?
You can sprout just about any veggie that produces above ground
indoors but just about all that grow below ground should be direct
seeded. I use the styrofoam egg cartons, with holes punched in the
bottoms, for just about all of my transplants--- but I do transplant
them to soil blocks when they get four new leaves. They then go to
the cold frame for hardening off and then to the garden. I use the
cartons from "Jumbo" eggs because the dividers go all the way to the
top and I fill them with mix to almost overflowing, this helps in
preventing damping off. I cut off the lid from the carton and use it
for a watering tray beneath the carton------waste not, want not!
Bill

On 20 Mar 2004 11:55:08 -0800, (David
Goldsmith) wrote:

I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with.

Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?

Start tomatoes, peppers, eggplants if you cannot buy the varieties you
want to grow in the nurseries/greenhouses. I used to go up to Elma
every year until 1964 with my folks to visit my dad's sister. Every
time we got there it was cold, cloudy, raining.. usually mid/late
August. They'd say it was beautiful the day before and wonderful the
day after we were there! I don't believe it! It's always damp and
cold there isn't it? ;-)

I don't know that it is, but I figure that warmth loving plants like
tomatoes and peppers, and particularly Eggplants would benefit with
soil warming mulches. They've been claiming that red plastic mulch
increases yields everywhere I read this year. Plant heat loving
plants in the warmest areas, cucumbers, if you are trying melons or
squash, they need really warm soil .. you could start them in advance
but you need to get them in the ground as soon as they get their first
true leaves or you'll just make them slower than direct seeded plants.

Certainly, root crops don't much want transplanting. You can start
cole crops like cabbage or other above ground plants, pretty much
anything you'll figure you will have trouble identifying or keeping
the weeds away from. I've been touting making rings of newspaper from
pinky size to toilet paper roll diameter or so. Cut the strips as wide
as your starting container is tall and fill up with your seed starting
mix, don't worry about what falls between the rings so long as it
doesn't collapse the ring before you can fill them, plant the small
seed like lettuce that you can go pop it out in the soil as soon as
they get a true leave or so. You can use a popscicle stick or corn
dog stick if you have them..or cut the popscicle stick in two if you
need something narrower.. anything you want to use that does the job,
a small bowl ice tea spoon etc. to lift the first few seedlings. So
long as you don't let the seedlings stay in the tubes too long, it
works marvelously. They don't need bottoms so long as you pop them
out before they grow too long...of course putting larger seeds into
the larger tubes. You could make bottoms in the tubes for things like
squash or melons as they are particularly touchy about transplanting
and have larger roots .. just cut the strips wider and fold the bottom
in as you would close coin wrappers.

You can use paper egg cartons, but .. and this is a big BUT.. make
sure you set them in a container that's water tight and keep a bit of
water in the bottom or they will do what peat pots will do when they
dry out, they'll wick moisture away from the soil and the plants
roots. Styrofoam cartons really don't have much capacity for soil,
but I suppose you can start tiny seed in them so long as you shift
them out or into another pot as soon as they come up and look like
they'll stand the picking up of the entire soil chunk with a teaspoon
and pop it into a larger container or outside. Luckily, tomatoes
supposedly benefit from transplanting as you can put the leggy ones
deeper into the soil, and the form more roots.

Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted?

ayup.. plant carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, radish, and other
root crops directly in the soil. Potatoes, best started from small
whole seed potatoes like the size of a hens egg or a bit smaller, You
can start from cut potatoes, let them sit out a bit to dry and put
them in holes at least 6" deep as you can and fill in just a bit of
the soil over them as they grow, filling a bit more and a bit more,
and when they get up to the surface, hill up the plants by scraping
soil up around the stems of the potatoes as they grow enough to pull
more soil up until after they've bloomed I think. The main key
is...they will not set any potatoes deeper than where you plant the
seed potato. They form potato tubers off the buried stems of the
potato plant, and you want to keep a good amount of soil over them so
they do not turn green. I wouldn't necessarily suggest mulching in
your part of the world with grass clipping, it's too wet, and I would
suggest choosing the lightest soil in your garden that's in an area
where you can restrict the amount of water it gets, as after a certain
time you need to withdraw water for the plants to die back and to keep
the tubers formed from rotting or regrowing. Again, I know.. you
didn't ask, but they're one of those things ..while not necessarily
seeds.. you generally don't start outside the garden, however there
were some seeds for potatoes some years back that one could buy. So
there are no hard and fast rules there.


And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts?

you saw above by now.

Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

Transplanted where? into other pots or the ground? I'd think trees
grow there all by themselves.. if they're in the ground, keep the area
around them weeded, and slap some of those cheap wire tomato cages
plopped over them to keep people or pets from tromping on them. If
deer like to eat them, use them upside down with the pointy parts
pointed up to poke 'em ;-)

I know.. I know.. so many words for so little info. It's a weakness!

Janice

On 20 Mar 2004 11:55:08 -0800, (David
Goldsmith) wrote:

I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with.

Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?

Start tomatoes, peppers, eggplants if you cannot buy the varieties you
want to grow in the nurseries/greenhouses. I used to go up to Elma
every year until 1964 with my folks to visit my dad's sister. Every
time we got there it was cold, cloudy, raining.. usually mid/late
August. They'd say it was beautiful the day before and wonderful the
day after we were there! I don't believe it! It's always damp and
cold there isn't it? ;-)

I don't know that it is, but I figure that warmth loving plants like
tomatoes and peppers, and particularly Eggplants would benefit with
soil warming mulches. They've been claiming that red plastic mulch
increases yields everywhere I read this year. Plant heat loving
plants in the warmest areas, cucumbers, if you are trying melons or
squash, they need really warm soil .. you could start them in advance
but you need to get them in the ground as soon as they get their first
true leaves or you'll just make them slower than direct seeded plants.

Certainly, root crops don't much want transplanting. You can start
cole crops like cabbage or other above ground plants, pretty much
anything you'll figure you will have trouble identifying or keeping
the weeds away from. I've been touting making rings of newspaper from
pinky size to toilet paper roll diameter or so. Cut the strips as wide
as your starting container is tall and fill up with your seed starting
mix, don't worry about what falls between the rings so long as it
doesn't collapse the ring before you can fill them, plant the small
seed like lettuce that you can go pop it out in the soil as soon as
they get a true leave or so. You can use a popscicle stick or corn
dog stick if you have them..or cut the popscicle stick in two if you
need something narrower.. anything you want to use that does the job,
a small bowl ice tea spoon etc. to lift the first few seedlings. So
long as you don't let the seedlings stay in the tubes too long, it
works marvelously. They don't need bottoms so long as you pop them
out before they grow too long...of course putting larger seeds into
the larger tubes. You could make bottoms in the tubes for things like
squash or melons as they are particularly touchy about transplanting
and have larger roots .. just cut the strips wider and fold the bottom
in as you would close coin wrappers.

You can use paper egg cartons, but .. and this is a big BUT.. make
sure you set them in a container that's water tight and keep a bit of
water in the bottom or they will do what peat pots will do when they
dry out, they'll wick moisture away from the soil and the plants
roots. Styrofoam cartons really don't have much capacity for soil,
but I suppose you can start tiny seed in them so long as you shift
them out or into another pot as soon as they come up and look like
they'll stand the picking up of the entire soil chunk with a teaspoon
and pop it into a larger container or outside. Luckily, tomatoes
supposedly benefit from transplanting as you can put the leggy ones
deeper into the soil, and the form more roots.

Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted?

ayup.. plant carrots, parsnips, turnips, rutabaga, radish, and other
root crops directly in the soil. Potatoes, best started from small
whole seed potatoes like the size of a hens egg or a bit smaller, You
can start from cut potatoes, let them sit out a bit to dry and put
them in holes at least 6" deep as you can and fill in just a bit of
the soil over them as they grow, filling a bit more and a bit more,
and when they get up to the surface, hill up the plants by scraping
soil up around the stems of the potatoes as they grow enough to pull
more soil up until after they've bloomed I think. The main key
is...they will not set any potatoes deeper than where you plant the
seed potato. They form potato tubers off the buried stems of the
potato plant, and you want to keep a good amount of soil over them so
they do not turn green. I wouldn't necessarily suggest mulching in
your part of the world with grass clipping, it's too wet, and I would
suggest choosing the lightest soil in your garden that's in an area
where you can restrict the amount of water it gets, as after a certain
time you need to withdraw water for the plants to die back and to keep
the tubers formed from rotting or regrowing. Again, I know.. you
didn't ask, but they're one of those things ..while not necessarily
seeds.. you generally don't start outside the garden, however there
were some seeds for potatoes some years back that one could buy. So
there are no hard and fast rules there.


And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts?

you saw above by now.

Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

Transplanted where? into other pots or the ground? I'd think trees
grow there all by themselves.. if they're in the ground, keep the area
around them weeded, and slap some of those cheap wire tomato cages
plopped over them to keep people or pets from tromping on them. If
deer like to eat them, use them upside down with the pointy parts
pointed up to poke 'em ;-)

I know.. I know.. so many words for so little info. It's a weakness!

Janice

(David Goldsmith) wrote in
om:

I vegetable garden organically in Oly, Wash. and am getting ready to
start this year's crop. I have good soil and good compost to enrich
it with. Opinions: should I seed directly or start and transplant?
Does it depend on the plant, i.e., some plants should be seeded
directly, others started and transplanted? And any opinions regarding
using egg cartons for the starts? Finally and separately, any advice
on nursing transplanted cedar sprouts?

If the temperature cooperates and you are protected from pests, you should
sow directly.

Transplanting is good if you want to get a jump on the season and start
your seeds in a warmer location. Some plants (i.e. peppers) resent being
transplanted. In this case you would use a biodegradable container and
transplant the whole container to avoid disturbing the roots.

Salty Thumb wrote:
...Transplanting is good if you want to get a jump on the season and start
your seeds in a warmer location. Some plants (i.e. peppers) resent being
transplanted. In this case you would use a biodegradable container and
transplant the whole container to avoid disturbing the roots...


I've been transplanting peppers for a long time without problems (other
than things like cutworms). In fact for a couple years I bought pepper
plants that were shipped bare root. However, melons really benefit from
the peat pot or equivalent treatment. Also, peppers really like being
germinated in a warm location (like soil temperature 75F), so they
benefit from transplanting.

One more good reason to transplant: If you seed stuff, the weed seeds
have been in your seedbed for a year or more, are pre-moistened and
ready to go. All they need is to be brought up to the surface (e.g. by
tillage). Your seed has to sit for a while and absorb water to
germinate. Consequently the weeds frequently emerge before your plants.
In order to weed your plants you then have to recognize the immature
stages and differentiate them from the weeds, particularly for
slow-growing plants. (Things like beans present few problems since they
grow quickly.)

As soon as you transplant, the plants you want are bigger than the weeds
that are about to sprout and it is much easier to weed the crop since it
is obvious which is the plant you want to keep (as long as you get to
the weeding before the weeds outrun the crop).

Dwight Sipler wrote in
:

Salty Thumb wrote:
...Transplanting is good if you want to get a jump on the season and
start
your seeds in a warmer location. Some plants (i.e. peppers) resent
being transplanted. In this case you would use a biodegradable
container and transplant the whole container to avoid disturbing the
roots...


I've been transplanting peppers for a long time without problems
(other than things like cutworms). In fact for a couple years I bought
pepper plants that were shipped bare root. However, melons really
benefit from the peat pot or equivalent treatment. Also, peppers
really like being germinated in a warm location (like soil temperature
75F), so they benefit from transplanting.


oops, I meant 'e.g. peppers' not 'i.e. peppers', but now that Dwight has
pointed that out, I actually meant 'e.g. melons' sheepish :-)

Speaking of melons, for those of us in northern areas where the growing
season might be a bit shorter than the melons would like, it helps to
start the melons early. That means putting them out when the temperature
is a bit lower than they might like.

To do this succesfully, you have to take some pre-measures to warm the
soil. Black plastic helps, although clear plastic warms the soil faster.
However, clear plastic allows weeds to grow under it. My solution is a
two-stage soil covering: black plastic on the soil and clear plastic
over top of that, supported by hoops. Put some drip irrigation under the
black plastic. I generally use the clear slitted row cover which is
available at agricultural supply places, but I don't know how short a
section you can get. I use full rolls.

When you put the coverings on the soil, plant some melons in peat pots.
When the melons get a couple of true leaves (a couple of weeks), peel
back the slitted row cover, poke a hole in the black plastic, make some
mud in the hole and put the peat pot in (trying not to disturb the melon
roots too much). Then put the slitted row cover back on. You can now
water the melons through the drip irrigation and leave the clear slitted
plastic on until the melons start to poke through the slits in earnest
(the first few leaves coming through should be pushed back in). Don't
worry about the melons in hot weather: they love hot weather. It might
get to 120F under there. Great for melons. As long as they get enough
water.

Before I started doing this I used to plant watermelons when the soil
warmed up naturally (in New England) and get them about mid-september.
With this treatment they come in by early to mid August. There's no
market for watermelons after labor day, so it helps me a lot.