Seed starting the cheap way!

Supplies: Coffee filters, Ziploc^TM bags, painters tape, sharpie (or other permanent marker), water, and seeds.

I started by attaching pieces of painters tape to all the Ziploc bags so I would have them ready to write on when needed. I had 2 dishes: one for wetting the coffee filter, and one for adding the seeds. I dipped the coffee filter in water and squeezed out the excess liquid. The coffee filter should be damp, not wet. I arranged my moistened coffee filter in a dish (this just happens to be a pie dish) and filled up 1/4 of the filter with seeds.


I then folded the filter in half . . .


....then a second time to make a little pie wedge. This particular filter looks to be a little too wet (unless it's the lighting).


Afterwards, I wrote the name and days until germination on the tape and put the filter inside the baggy. I blew a bit of air into the bag and sealed it up. The germination date is just there for me to start worrying if nothing has sprouted by then. I still check the bag obsessively, sometimes 10+ times a day. :) Look at my beautiful handwriting. (I wrote neatly for the camera.) On the 15th bag or so, I started getting a headache from the fumes from the marker. I think it affected my handwriting!


The finished seedlings for the day! I don't expect all of these to sprout because I purchased these seeds back in 2005, but I'm hoping that most will. In 3 weeks when every square inch of our home is filled with seedlings planted in paper cups, my husband will be so delighted with me! I must have started over 1k seeds today. . not counting the few hundred I started on Saturday.


I purchased my seeds from the following companies: Stokes, Johnny's Selected Seeds, Select seeds,and Swallowtail Garden Seeds.

The packaging from Stokes was just a paper packet sealed at the top. It was a bit hard to pry apart without ripping the package. There isn't any way to reseal these packets. Perhaps this isn't a concern for some, but my yard is quite small and I can only use a few seeds at a time. Johnny's seeds were in paper packets with a flap that bent down and sealed. The flap was easy to open and resealable after opening.

The paper envelopes from Select seeds were similar to the ones from Johnny's except they were terribly hard to open. When opening, the paper at the front of the packet would split apart instead of the envelope opening up to the contents. The seeds were in little glassine envelopes inside so it didn't matter if they ripped. The company sent me a free package of seeds with my purchase. I like that! :)

Lastly, we have my favourite packaging from Swallowtail. Swallowtail garden seeds came in the same resealable type envelope as Johnny's. Not only that, but the seeds were enclosed in a glassine envelope that was enclosed in a miniature ziploc bag. Even if my hands were moist and covered with dirt the seeds would stay clean when I picked up the package. Great for me because I'm a very messy gardener!

I would gladly purchase from any of these companies again. The shipping was prompt and the seeds was packaged very well.

Seeds started today:

Stokes

• Hybrid cucumber - Turbo
• Hybrid watermelon - Sweet beauty
• Hybrid Eggplant - Baby bell (I had started 20 of these and each one of them sprouted but my eeevil kitty kat thought it would be great to pull all of the seedlings out of the seed cells and leave them on the window sill. That murderer! So here I am planting them again and this time i'll protects them from the eeevil kitty!)
• Campanula Persicifolia - White bell (I'll be lucky if these grow here but I have 1500 seeds to try with.)
• Heliotrope - Marine lemoine Strain (Love the smell)

Johnny's Selected Seeds

• Hybrid melon - Sun Jewel
• Hybrid melon - Spanish sugar nut

Select seeds

• Salivia annual clary 'Marble arch rose'
• Blue woodruff
• Toadflax 'Confetti'
• Texas Sage 'Coral nymph'
• Nolana
• Malope 'Vulcan' (I just liked the name)
• Garden Heliotrope (smells so good)
• Rose campion 'Occulata' (another set of seedlings that fell victim to the kitty massacre)

Swallowtail Garden seeds

• Zebra Hollyhock - Mauritiana
• Delphinium - clear springs mix
• Sidalcea - Party girl
• Penstemon - Tubular bells rose (more kitty bloodshed)

I can barely use 20 seeds of one kind but I got hundreds even thousands of some of these seeds. O.o What am I going to do with all the plants? I really wish I had some gardening buddies to share seeds with, but I'd settle for one human friend that isn't imaginary. My poor puppy is my only friend but the only gardening he can do is dig holes.