It’s pretty cold outside, below freezing, but thankfully not too much snow here and the sun is shining. A little. Spring is only a few weeks away and we want to get started. We set up a nursery in the basement to get some seeds started of plants that we think do particularly well in the Upotic Planter: three varieties of coleus (Red Velvet, Under the Sun, Chocolate Covered Cherry), three varieties of tomato (Cherry Baby, Roma, Best Boy), and three varieties of hot peppers (Fire Away, Orange Pepperoncini, Hot Lemon). We even planted some spinach seeds. If we get a good crop, we think these plants will thrive indoors in Upotic Planters until they can go outside to soak up the sunshine.
It’s not too difficult to set up an indoor nursery. We have a couple long tables and bought some plastic shelves (attached grow lights to the undersides of shelves). We’re using a variety of LED grow lights, based on what’s available locally and to experiment with different spectrums. We hung a few grow lights from the rafters on chains, to adjust the height as the plants grow. At the moment, they are about 8″ from the tops of the seedlings, which are in trays so we can bottom water. Seedlings need plenty of water and it’s best for them if the soil they are in can wick water to their little roots, versus drenching them from the top or sides. Thanks to Gary Pilarchik on YouTube for his awesome playlists. If you’re a beginning gardener you definitely want to subscribe to his channel.
We have a fan going to circulate the air. Not full blast mind you, just a nice gentle breeze. This has many benefits for our young plants including a reduction of mold/bacteria, strengthening plant core branches, and improving humidity and oxygen levels. We learned a lot from the Indoor Grow Zone blog. Our basement is about 65°F, so we also set up a little space heater on the floor under a shelf for some radiant heat.
Our seeds were from Proven Winners, Ball Seed, and Burpee. Again, trying to stick to what most people can find in local stores. We used a variety of seed starting kits. The first was Jiffy’s Expanding Peat Pellets. When you add water to them they expand inside a mesh pouch. The greenhouse kit had a tray with a cover so seeds can start in a warm, humid environment. After our seeds sprouted, at about three weeks, we transplanted them into 4″ pots, making sure the mesh was covered with soil (water can wick away otherwise). We used Miracle Grow Nature’s Care potting mix, which is supposed to protect plants from over or under watering. These are now about a month old and they are still pretty small, as you can see, but we think it’s because we were still getting set up properly while they were trying to grow.
A few days ago we started a second wave of seedlings, using McKenzie 72-cell seed starting kits and Burpee Organic Potting Mix. We also tried out Burpee’s seed starting kit that came with a “self watering capillary mat”. Seemed like a gadget to me: you put water in the bottom tray, then place these square stands on top that hold the mat, whose ends are tucked into the ends to soak up water. The cell trays get placed on the mat and then are covered by the clear plastic dome. We’re interested to see how they all grow and we’ll keep you posted. Our goal is to have plants ready to go into Upotic Planters for an April campus event that’s in the works.
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The Upotic Planter 