Seed Starting Basics + What I’m starting for the Cut Flower Garden!

Hey friends! Welcome back. Now that I have a quiet moment, I’m going to start seeds for the cut flower garden. I’ll go over some seed starting basics and what supplies you’ll need to get your seeds off on the right foot.

See the list below for what I started and which of those seeds need sunlight to germinate.

Happy Gardening!
Kate

Seeds started:

Stock: Apricot, Avalanche Supreme, Buttercream, Iron Apricot, Malmaison Pink, Vintage Brown

Snapdragon (*Note: Do not cover… light aids germination): Costa Apricot, Costa Silver, Madame Butterfly Mix, Potomac Ivory, Potomac Lavender, Potomac Orange, Potomac Red, Potomac Royal

Statice: Pastel Mix, Sunset Mix

Dianthus (*Note: Do not cover… light aids germination): Chabaud de La France

Scabiosa (*Note: Barely cover): Fama White, Fata Morgana, Starflower

Strawflower (*Note: Do not cover… light aids germination): Apricot Mix, Copper Red

Rudbeckia: Cherry Brandy, Sahara Mix, Chim Chiminee Mix

[Music] all right friends welcome to another favorite Nursery this is Sky and this is just North of Seattle and this is my youngest son’s favorite Nursery because they have amazing hot chocolate but I am stopping here on my way home from Runing errands because I actually need to pick up some more seed starting supplies essentially every year I end up like damaging those plastic trays I need I need a different solution uh but I am just gonna pop in here because I want to get some things going [Music] tomorrow I’m not finding [Music] inserts oh see these are the thinner ones I don’t know that I like these okay so they’re selling this as a kit I don’t know if you can see this but there’s a there’s an insert that has a purple perforation in it and then the next one down is solid with no perforation this is really amazing if you’re doing like um bottom watering for anything and then it has a plastic dome for on top for germination so it’s a nice little three pack it’s 20 bucks but this plastic this feels like the standard kind of thin stuff so I’m not going for this this these trays are 4 bucks a piece but this is made out of a lot thicker plastic like it seems pretty substantial so I’m going to give these ago and just see how they are typically you’re going to buy something like this this is um it fits essentially like a 10 x 20 is what they call it and often times they’ll have these for putting in 4in containers all right so this is another thing you see commonly and this has all of the inserts in it so what you have here is again you’ve got a solid base you got your little plastic dome for germination and then you have these super deep um six-pack trays I go through so so many of these and I feel just terrible about it I do have a soil blocking kit that I think I’m going to bust out uh when I really start going but I just need to get some things started so it’s like low hanging fruit for me right now so I’m on the hunt right now for the insert I like these trays I think they’re going to do well I know I have plastic domes at home um and so at this point I just need the insert so see what we can find okay this is really interesting this little thin guy this actually would be really great if you’re doing soil blocking and you’re using the teeny tiny soil blocker because look at that that’s super shallow so that’s very [Music] cool oh my gosh they were right above so when you’re doing seed starting you actually have a ton of different options you can use pellets you can use a seed starting mix you can soil block just I mean the options are endless when I do this with little kids I actually really like just using these little pop-up guys because kids love them you just pour water on them and justop they just grow like magic um so this is a really fun option for little kids just because I think they like seeing it like blow up with all the water so this one is super fun and I’ve had a good time with this with the littles um but for me I’m just going to use some standard just good old classics I use a solid bottom tray I have clear domes already at home and then I’m buying these inserts um this is 72 count and it will fill a tray so I’m doing four trays of 7 two Starts Now when you’re starting your seeds uh if you’re not doing soil blocking which is a completely different mixture you are going to be using a seed starting mix this is sterile it’s not going to have weed seeds in it there’s two that I commonly see this pink bag which is Gardener and Bloom and then we have this blue bag which is espoma I’m kind of interested I’ve never done a side-by-side comparison so maybe I need to do that interesting thing okay I’m going to grab one of each let me know if you want a review and I can throw that up on the channel for you okay I think that’s all we [Music] needes okay friends uh as you know I love my job and I do my job on the weekends like I I I love what I do and I’m always really excited when I see something fantastic okay behind me is the most incredible selection usually you don’t get this many different varieties of sweet peas look at this this is freaking amazing okay this is Langley Langley fine Gardens grown on Vashon look at all of these gorgeous varieties okay this Prince of orange this is so sweet oh my gosh these are so good oh Navy oh I love this Mrs Collier this is another really great variety love this oh my gosh you know how much I love a moody flower Lord Nelson but you have to say it like that I’m pretty sure oh my gosh oh King’s High scent I have grown this this is more of like a cool tone pink it’s very pretty highly recommend oh interesting okay Floren Norton that’s really pretty this one over here though iroh horn Iran um this one is one that floret recommended on her list okay I’m being really good I’m not going to get sucked in okay off we go every time I’m at a nursery I love to see what people are playing with in their containers just cuz different eyes have different combinations and the person who does the containers at Sky she’s awesome okay but look at this look at this apparently we both got the memo about Wallflower this year is that gorgeous and I’m just loving that she’s doing these deep purples the oranges a little bit of yellow it’s just it’s so bright and happy I’m just I’m loving it and she’s using an encan this is a centerpiece this is a plant that honestly it doesn’t look like much right now but the shape of this Bloom when I see it blooming I will absolutely record it because it is one of my favorite blooms Sensational hello my friends good morning it is currently raining here in Seattle and so I’m going to be doing a little indoor activity I am super far behind starting seeds for my cut flower garden so that is what I’m going to be working on today and I thought it might be a good good opportunity I get a lot of seed starting questions so I’m just going to flip you around okay my friends so here is my setup I’m literally at the kitchen table and I’ve got a couple things these are first of all my trays these are solid bottom and this is what I’m going to be putting my inserts into I also have some seeds back there that I’ll go over in a minute and then kind of Shifting over this way I have first and foremost my tray now if you are an Urban Gardener you might not have a greenhouse or an outdoor space where you can do seed starting so when I’m working at the kitchen table this is really really great because I will mix my seed starting mixture in here fill my trays and it just cuts down on a lot of my disaster indoors I also have a little assortment of previously loved plant tags this one is literally when you get these from the store just flip them over free plant tag um I am running a little bit low here and so I also have some blue tape and I’ll be using this to label the outside of my trays I also have two seed starting mixes so the first one is the espoma organic seed starter I’m just going to use this one see how this goes I don’t believe I’ve used this in quite some time my closest nursery stocks The Gardener and Bloom so I use this very frequently and this one is a great mix I’ve also used The Gardener Supply seed starting mix that is also a good one the last thing I have here here is my watering can you may be wondering why well if you have started seeds you know that the mixture has no moisture in it and so in order to get your seeds off to the right start you really do need to pre moisten your seed starting mix and so I will walk you through that process we’re going to start with the espoma first I’m just going to go ahead and open this entire bag into my tray here because I know I’m starting a lot of SE today and I’m totally going to use it [Music] all okay next I’m going to go ahead and add my water I typically add warm water just because it’s [Music] nicer okay and so what you’re going to notice is if you’re new new to seeds starting it’s going to take a minute do you see how it’s just floating here on top of the water it’s going to take a minute for all of this to get Incorporated and basically you just want to like move your hands through kind of scrunch it almost like you’re playing with Play-Doh okay and this I don’t know if you can see this but this is now becoming something more that we can play with so when you squ squish it like that you should have just a little bit of water come out and it should hold its shape so definitely need more okay need more water okay so this is about where I want it so you can hear a little bit of the moisture in there when you squeeze it it’s kind of forming a nice little Clump here you can see your finger indentations this is about where we want it to be so now I’m going to go ahead and take this and shift it all to one side and bring in my tray okay so we have our little nine cells and we have our solid bottom tray so I’m going to go ahead and start laying these in and We’re Off to the Races okay so when it’s at this point that we’re going to go ahead M scoot this a little bit closer and we’re going to start [Music] filling okay so now that we have our tray filled with soil I actually going to move this onto the table and give it a little bit of a tap to reset it and essentially what this does is it’s going to settle any cells so I can see like right here I have these cells that have settled these ones have settled these ones have settled this one and this one have settled so I’m going to plop this back move it back in and do a final little top off and then I’m going to move on to filling our next [Music] [Music] tray [Music] [Music] [Music] okay so before I scoop up the rest of this seed starting mix I just wanted to give you a little bit of a closer look I have actually this has actually been pretty good little mix here I’ve only found a couple of larger pieces and it’s not quite enough to fill two and 1 half trays of course maybe I’m packing it in more generously than you might um but in case anyone is wondering I’ve filled almost 2 and 1 half 72 cellc count trays using one bag of the espoma which is eight dry quartz so I’m going to go ahead and remove this and I’m going to mix in the second bag of the gardener and Bloom so I can finish off my seed starting for the day and then also my little watering can here this is maybe I don’t know maybe like a half gallon and I used one and a half of these to hydrate that mixture okay Straight Out The Gate this one actually feels more like I don’t know like more dirt likee and less Pete Mossy if that makes any sense like less pey interesting oh interesting okay I kind of wonder if this is it okay so the espoma the ingredients here are spum Pete Moss paraly limone to adjust pH and yaka extract interesting um they also have a lot of microz O fungi in here this one on the other hand it’s also Pete Moss parite and then they also include pmus and washed sand I actually think I’m feeling the wash sand texture in here which is super interesting this doesn’t have any added micro risal or anything like that so I’m going to be curious to see how these shake up okay I was just thinking while I was mixing and the only other observation that I had when I purchased these is that the gardener and Bloom the bag actually felt heavier and I kind of wondered if it was like it had some moisture in it or what have you I honestly think it’s the wash sand okay 2 cents let’s go over what I’m going to be starting today and essentially what I have done is I have pre-sorted these into the flats that I will be starting so this first flat I have basically it’s all snapd dragons Okay so I’m going to be starting pomac Ivory and I I’m almost out so I ordered a second poic lavender I have Costa silver pomac royal pomac red Madam butterfly this one is a little bit different it has a little bit more of a frilly uh petal to it Costa apricot I loved this one so I have also repurchased and pomac orange really loved this one as well and that’s it so this is actually going to be Flats number one and two and I’m doing two of the 9in cells for these guys okay next we have flat number three I’m going to be starting and this is like this is Operation use all of my old seed so I may have lower germination rate but I’m kind of I kind of don’t care we’re just going to roll the dice use the seed see what happens right it’s all an experiment this this is flat number three I’m going to do two Flats of this Carnation it’s h dianthus and I’m not even going to pronounce that chabod laf France I don’t know anyways really pretty light pink I’m going to give that a go um next I have two different statuses I have Sunset mix and I have pastel mix so going to start those and then I also have some scabiosa so this one is the starflower that’s more like a seed pod really enjoy that I have Fama white and I have Fatam Organa so I’m doing all of those and then flat number four so I’m doing two of each so I really love stock it’s one of my favorite flowers and so I love the scent of it the whole nine so I am going to start two of the nine cells of each variety and then since they are a single flowering item I’ll probably direct sew another round in about 2 weeks so I have Avalanche Supreme vintage Brown I I really really love this this is a beautiful beautiful one and so I grabbed another packet uh malyon Pink never grown it we’re going to see apricot I absolutely love this one in fact I’m almost out so I picked up more iron apricot and then moving on to Flat number five I have more stock so this one is buttercream I have straw flow apricot mix strawflower copper red I have some yarao summer pastels and then I have a little selection of rubia um reia Sahara chim chimney mix I’m very very excited about this one and Cherry Brandy so there you have it we’re going to do a little Marathon seed starting session today okay and so I’m probably just going to I don’t know hang out start some seed see what happens okay my friends first up on our list is the snapdragons these ones are surface zone so basically I’m going to go ahead and just sprinkle them lightly on the surface um this is a little bit of an older seed so I’m going to plant a few seeds per cell and then at the very end instead of watering I’ll probably just come back through and Mist them in okay and also sometimes seed starting takes a while so I’m going to listen to the [Music] podcast [Music] [Music] okay friends so there we have it this was a marathon seed starting Mission today I actually do feel really good I burned through a ton of older seed which makes me feel very good I went a little heavy on the sewing of those seeds because I’m just not sure how the germination is so threw in a little bit more than anticipated and then also probably what you noticed is some of these seeds I covered and some I did not so what I’ll probably do is I will drop a full list of the seeds that I’ve started down in the description and maybe I’ll put like a little asterisk or somehow Mark the ones that need light to germinate all right last thing on my list here is I’m going to go ahead and put some domes on the top the clear domes that I showed you earlier put these under my grow lights but before I do that I’ll give them a little mist and they’re off to the R says I hope you have a wonderful day stay H to your garden for me [Music] bye