Start plants from seeds and eat what you grow - Springfield Daily Citizen (2024)

Kelley Patient didn’t get much more than a salad out of her first foray into gardening about 10 years ago.

Even though she lived in the Sunshine State at the time, she soon discovered that the lettuce she planted on her apartment patio in Florida wasn’t getting enough light to thrive.

“Two hours of sun on an apartment patio every day is just not enough to meet the plant’s needs,” she said.

Nevertheless, what she calls her “unproductive but so fun” experience inspired Patient to try again, until finally — after some trial and error — she learned to nurture many flowers and vegetables from seeds on a windowsill to mature plants in her garden.

Now a University of Missouri Extension master gardener, Patient encourages others to try starting plants from seed, too. For those who get excited about the promise of seeds in colorful packages — yet don’t get excited about the high prices of plants — late winter and early spring is the time to give it a whirl.

“Maybe just don’t overthink it,” Patient said. “Just try it. There’s loads of tips and advice.”

Free help with seed starting Saturday

University of Missouri Extension guides and charts offer both, and so do classes like the Springfield Community Gardens seed-starting workshop this Saturday at the Springfield-Greene County Library’s Midtown Carnegie branch.

Jokingly proclaiming herself a “seed addict,” library outreach coordinator and Midtown Garden leader Stephanie Handy said saving money and being able to grow plants they can’t find in stores prompts many people to try growing garden plants from seed.

“For most people, buying plants is cost-prohibitive,” said Handy, one of the teachers at Saturday’s workshop.“You can get access to a much wider range of plants when you start them from seed.”

One year, for example, Patient ordered Rosella tomato seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Co. in Mansfield — a variety most gardeners probably haven’t found in the plant section of a big-box store. Now, the smoky red tomato is one of her favorites, she said.

“Frankly, not every place sells the things I want to grow,” Patient said, “so if I want to try something unusual that I haven’t seen at a garden store before, then I’d better grow it.

“But there’s also a sort of magic in trying new things for yourself,” she added. “So that keeps me motivated.”

In 2023, Patient started milkweed — “notoriously hard to grow” — in her house. This year, she’s trying to grow ornamental bunny tail grasses.

Check out these seeds!

If you’re on a tight budget, buying the seeds of commonly grown flowers and vegetables may not even be necessary. Most Springfield-Greene County Library branches allow patrons to “check out” packets of heirloom herb, flowers and vegetables seeds from their seed libraries, then “return” them, if possible, as seeds saved from mature plants.

Heirloom seed-savers also swap seeds. Both Handy and Patient mentioned recent seed-swapping events — one at the Midtown library, another at the Springfield Botanical Gardens at Nathanael Greene/Close Memorial Park — that the public is welcome to attend.

If you come across seeds saved from a hybrid plant, keep in mind the harvest could be unpredictable, Handy said, since they may or may not bear fruits and vegetables true to the crop they came from.

Whether you’re looking at heirloom or hybrid seeds, if you decide to buy seeds because germination percentage rates are important to you, note whether those rates are listed, as they are in some catalogs, Patient said.

“If you want every single seed to grow, buy them from a reputable producer,” Patient said.

Look at expiration dates on seed packages, too. At the same time, know that many seeds are still viable for years after those dates, Handy said. If you’re unsure about whether old seeds will germinate, overseed the pot by sowing more seeds than you need to sprout, she said.

Getting seeds startedin your kitchen

Now’s the time to rummage through your recycling bin. Many kinds of containers can serve as pots for starting seeds, as long as they’re clean, growers said.

Patient has used yogurt cups; Handy suggests options like cardboard egg cartons, toilet paper rolls, paper cups and trays you can buy at a dollar store.

Another option is to start seeds in a gallon-size plastic milk or water jug — something recycling centers are happy to give away, Handy said.

As you collect seeds for your future garden, consult a gardening chart, such as an University of Missouri Extension chart, to determine when to start them indoors, Patient said. That timeframe depends on the plant and the gardening zone, she added.

The Springfield area is in Zone 6, according to a U.S. Department of Agriculture plant hardiness map.

“Look at the frost date and what plants you want to grow. Look at what you can grow in our zone, in our area, and work backwards,” Patient said. “The reason is if the little plant gets too big before it goes outside, it might not do as well outside.”

What about the dirt?

Soil is the next consideration.

Sterile seed-starting or potting soil is fine until seeds sprout, but after seedlings emerge, plants need more nutrients than peat moss provides, Handy notes in a handout she shared with participants at a February seed-starting workshop at the Midtown garden.

While high concentrations of fertilizer can inhibit germination,it’s also OK to start seeds with potting soil that includes nutrients if it’s going to be a while until you transplant seedlings to the garden, the handout says.

After seedlings pop through the soil, they need to be fertilized.

Patient said she uses a “gentle, nitrogen-focused fertilizer” every day when she waters her seedlings.

How much sunlight is enough for young plants?

Many gardeners put seeded pots near sunny windows, even before they sprout.

Whether that works depends not only on the amount of sun, but the room temperature — and 65 to 75 degrees is ideal, according Handy’s guide.

Sunny windowsills work fine for plants like kale, leeks, lettuce, onions and shallots, Handy said at the workshop. Patient said she has had good luck sprouting tomatoes and flowers like statice from a sun-filled room at her Rogersville home.

“This house has a south-facing window that gets full sun for almost eight hours a day,” Patient said. “It is just wonderful for seed-starting.”

Some gardeners use grow lights to get plants going. Handy’s guide says natural light is better, yet also says gardeners can successfully use grow lights to supplement natural light, provided lights are kept six to eight inches above the seedlings.

While others set seeded pots on the warm top of a refrigerator until they’ve sprouted and need more light, still others place them on heat mats. Patient had success with those, too, she said — although she added that “fancy gear” for starting seeds isn’t necessary.

Keeping seeds moist is important, growers agree: Patient explained that retaining moisture is the reason growers often cover newly seeded pots with plastic wrap or bags at first.

“I have sadly not had seeds grow, and I think it was sadly because the soil dried out,” Patient said.

It’s not unusual to hear gardeners use the word “baby” to describe how they care for seedlings.

True story: Last April, this writer traveled to a bluegrass festival in North Carolina with tomato seedlings in the back seat of the car so she could take care of them every day.

Toughen up, buttercup!

Not long after seedlings emerge, thinning the fledgling crop can be difficult for gardeners excited about every sprout — yet important so that stronger seedlings have room to grow.

Don’t pluck weaker seedlings up by the roots, Handy said, because that can disturb their neighbors. Instead, use sharp, tiny scissors to snip back the stems.

“Some people have a hard time with this,” Handy joked. “You’re playing God here: Which ones live and which ones die?”

Another thing that’s hard for novice seed-starters is understanding how to toughen seedlings so they can survive and thrive in the garden.

One spring, her seedlings still growing indoors, Patient went outside and thought about the breezes around her. When she decided to replicate the wind by aiming a tabletop fan at her seedlings, she discovered that those plants grew stronger.

“And when they’re stronger in their stem, they can hold up to the outside world a little better,” Patient said.

Deciding when to move seedlings outside to start hardening them off so they can be transplanted can be tricky. That’s when charts from organizations like Extension can come in handy — along with the anecdotes of experienced seed-starters.

When Patient first grew tomatoes from seed, she rushed the hardening-off process.

“I was so excited about little baby tomatoes and put them out in the backyard in the sun,” Patient said. “And they just cooked in the sun.

“So that was a good lesson.”

After that experience, Patient started paying more attention to light and temperatures around her house, setting pots in partially shaded spots on her patio and moving them inside at night as the seedlings got used to outdoor conditions.

Do-it-yourself miniature greenhouse

At another 2024 workshop, Handy demonstrated a seed-starting method that can make both germinating seeds and hardening off seedlings a little more simple.

After drilling drainage holes into the bottoms of gallon-side plastic jugs, then cutting around them to create “hinges” under their handles, participants filled the bottom halves with moistened soil, then sowed seeds before duct-taping the jugs and setting them outside without lids — yet with labels to make seedling identification possible.

“Somebody discovered this makes the perfect greenhouse,” Handy said as participants scooped potting soil from a kiddie swimming pool into jugs.

On warm spring days, the jugs should be opened to release heat, then closed again at night, according to an Extension youth gardening handout explaining the process.

On cold days and freezing nights, jugs should be left taped shut to hold in the warmth — and if it’s 10 degrees or below, Handy added, all you need to do is put lids back on the jugs.

Using this method doesn’t change the fact that keeping seeds and seedlings moist is important: After the workshop, Handy took the time to text participants to remind them to water the soil in jugs, even during a cold spell.

This “mini greenhouse” method works especially well for seeds requiring a period of cold temperatures, or winter stratification, to break their dormancy. Handy said. By using this method, Handy said she has grown in one season perennial plants that otherwise need to seeded outside in the fall in order to bloom the following year.

“This method of growing is ideal for plants that go through stratification,” Handy said.

Sowing knowledgein Springfield

Again, check charts to determine when to transplant seedlings to the garden: April 10 is the last frost date here. Patient said, yet many gardeners traditionally wait until after Mother’s Day to transplant tomatoes, for example.

Both dates were still many weeks away when Cody and Shanell Frisbie drove from Hurley with their twin sons, Kieran and Killian, 9, for the February seed-starting workshop, a gathering of only 10 people.

The Frisbies were planning to start a garden this year, and the boys chatted enthusiastically about growing peppers — namely, fiery ghost peppers.

Their parents just wanted to give their sons the chance to learn a life skill.

“We thought it was important for them to be able to grow their own food, to be part of this community,” Cody Frisbie said of their reason for attending.

Welcoming them, Handy put the boys to work filling jugs with soil and sowing them with seed.

How to start seeds is “a knowledge that’s been lost to a lot of people,” Handy said. “We need more people who know how to grow things.”