Starting Seeds on the Cheap

With such a long winter here in Massachusetts, I have to start my plants indoors if I expect to have a head start once the ground warms. I've done a few things already.  I set a few old storm windows on top of the thawed grow boxes to help heat the ground below. This serves a few purposes; it warms the soil so I can get lettuce and cold weather plants in earlier but in some boxes, I want to super heat them to kill off any weed seeds before I fertilize or add my compost.

Notice a bit of snow still outside.. Other boxes are still under 6 inches of snow drifts.

So I'm trying to save as much money and not go overboard on spending. One thing I strive for this year is to go completely organic. I have a big box of organic fertilizer to add to the soil once I get ready to mix things up.

 Meanwhile, indoors, I have started over 30 seedlings in a dollar store cake box. I decided to try tomatoes and peppers and three broccoli plants filled up the container. I started them in peat pots. First wet them thoroughly, then drain off excess water once the pots expand. I  sunk each seed just under the surface and covered them up

Once the pots expand, go ahead and insert your seeds.

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Make sure you know what you planted where. I used half popsicle sticks but found they were hard to insert. I'll save the rest for outdoors and use some cut up hard plastic from something in the recycle bin.

In order for them to sprout, they need moisture and warmth. To provide warmth, I simply set the container on my cable box, which was nice and warm. In three days, all three broccoli seeds sprouted but none of the tomatoes or peppers have. So I took the three starts and put them right under one of my grow lights,  3W LED lamps I got from eBay. It is all red and blue lights and since it runs cool, it won't burn the plants.

One problem I noticed right away was that I should have put them under the light in the morning when I noticed them just breaking through, because by evening, they jumped to over an inch each, looking for light. I ended up ordering some heat mats from eBay and those were under $40 including shipping

Here they are under the first LED grow light. My heat mats came in so I'll transfer them to the mats and under my 4 ft. florescent grow lights. It's a standard shop light with one grow light and one cool white to balance things out.  I read that it will work just fine.

Another day and several more seeds popped, only tomatoes. I think peppers take a bit longer, so we'll see. I marked the sticks 1T, 2T, 1P, 2P etc. to keep track of what variety I plated in each. See the picture above to see that I marked each packet. These are now under florescent lights on one of my heat mats.

These heat mats certainly aren't anything fancy, but for $18.99 each shipped, they work as advertised.  The size fits a standard seedling tray. The thermometer on top registers exactly 80 degrees while the house is closer to 60.
I'll keep moving plants out of the cake dome as needed and monitor each variety.

My First DIY Hydroponic Bin Setup

I'm not a fan of just going out and spending more money on something just because of a pretty package. I could always buy a ready built bin system with everything pre-made, but sometimes the journey is more important than the end result. I enjoy learning about the process. It helps to bind me to my goals. Planning gives me time to make changes as I research and end up with exactly what I want.

My first hydroponic project is to make my own grow box. In winter I plan to grow my own lettuce and greens without electricity. Until then, I plan to use the box to start some serious plants for transplant later this Spring.


Today I drilled the holes in my storage bin grow box.  I laid the holes out on the underside of the lid, using a can lid to trace rough circles. I could have spaced the out side ones closer to the outside, but I'll remember that for the next one.

 I didn't have a hole saw and wasn't thrilled about buying one, but I found a circle cutter for $5.99 that worked great.  In order for the cup to not fall through, keep the hole between 2 7/8"-2 15/16". Because the cutters adjust up to about a 6" diameter, I can see this cutter as a must have tool for the home hydro enthusiast.

  I then punched a nail sized hole through the center of each circle to guide the center drill in the cutter. It has a carbon steel center drill and two adjustable outboard cutters to cut soft materials only. I used a drill press but as long as you hold the cutter carefully and clamp the lid down, it can be done on small holes with a pistol drill. Drilling from the top keeps any burrs on the underside.

There were some plastic strings that pulled right off. If the holes come out uneven or a bit undersized, don't try to redrill them with the cutter unless everything is well secured. The center drill keeps the cutters true and from jumping or wobbling.

The net pots are a snug fit but won't be able to fall through. Some light hand sanding may be necessary to get things just right.

I am happy how the holes came out. I'll be doing the same using 2" holes for smaller plants, seedlings, and starts. I think I could easily get 12 plants in one lid.

Gorilla Grow Tents: Tallest, Thickest, Strongest Grow Tents in the World

Next I'll be preparing the tub for plant starts. 

What are Hydroponics?

 hydroponics4u.com

Hydroponics may not be a household word, but it's actually been around for years now, so what is it? Hydroponics is a gardening technique that is a subset of hydroculture. In other words, it’s a method of growing plants by using a mineral nutrient solution suspended in water without the use of soil. Plants, as most of us know, are terrestrial and grow in soil or a potting mix. You have to water them, feed them fertilizer and then you can pick them from the ground.

Hydroponic plants grow with their roots in a mineral nutrient solution or in an inert medium, such as perlite or gravel. We don’t use soil as with plants that grow in the ground or in a pot. For the most part, plants will grow anywhere as long as you meet their basic needs. Have you seen weeds growing out of a crack in the road or in places that seem unlikely, or even impossible?  Plants only need air, water, light and the proper nutrients in order to grow. 

What about the Dirt?

Sun energy chemically changes water and carbon dioxide into sugar. We call that process photosynthesis. Expelled oxygen is actually a waste product of photosynthesis. That's why trees and plants are important in our world. As long as the basics of these components come together, growth can take place. However, without proper soil and fertilizer, or in the case of hydroponics, the media and nutrients, growth may not be optimal.

In nature, we assume that plants depend on dirt or soil to grow, but not so in hydroculture. With proper nutrients instead of soil, hydroponics uses an inert growing medium such as sponges, clay, rock or any substance that doesn't affect the plant’s pH. Since the plant's entire food source is water, soil serves no purpose and would actually cause more problems, just as it can in terra gardens. Soil can alter pH, introduce disease and unwanted bacteria, as well as pests and other problems that water and air gardening avoids.

How Does the Garden Grow? 

The plant grows suspended in a basket or cup over the water source below. In hydroponically-planted seedlings, the roots grow downward toward the water naturally, then seem to explode when they get to the minerals. That finishes the necessary chain, and the plants thrive better in water than soil under the same basic conditions. By starting plants indoors for later transplant, hydro farmers can get viable plants in the ground and then harvest them sooner than gardeners who depend on Mother Nature to provide the light and nutrition for sprouts to get going.

What Holds the Plants Up?

In hydro growing, the roots don't anchor the plant, as in soil; so they get the support they need from the grow media. That way, more energy is redirected to the foliage, and ultimately the flowers and fruit. The water is where you add the nutrients, to enable the small tubing in the reservoir to deliver essential nutrients to the grow chamber above. As time goes by and the plants grow larger and consume the nutrients, you will need to add more, or else the growth will slow and eventually the plants could die. Nearly constant circulation is necessary in order to deliver two of the required needs to your plants: water and nutrition.

So Nutrients are Like Vitamins?

The nutrients are generally a different formulation from crop to crop, depending on the needs of the particular plant. A lettuce plant, for example, doesn't need the same flowering fertilizers as much as a tomato. For example, phosphorus, potassium and magnesium are necessary for flower production, but starter plants and foliage growth depend mostly on a steady heavy dose of nitrogen. Flowering and fruiting plants will also consume more calcium, sulfur and micro nutrients, such as iron, manganese, boron, molybdenum and copper.

With all these factors working together, only one more thing is absolutely necessary to grow plants: light. Proper lighting, whether natural or man-made, is the main component of plant growth, whether hydroponically or soil grown. The light in a hydro system comes from above the plants. In fact, you have to block the light out from the reservoir, so algae doesn’t build up and compete with the plants for nutrition. Algae can also clog pumps and filters, causing a failure that could be catastrophic.

This is just a quick overview of the main difference between a soil and water based growing system. In future articles, we will branch into other methods using hydroponic equipment.

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