Grow Aster Cleome Salvia Tithonia From Seed | Sowing Seeds

I starting to sow seeds that can be started 6-8 weeks before my average last frost date. It’s late March in zone 5b New Hampshire and my last frost date is about May 15. Today we are sowing Chinese Aster, Cleome, Salvia and Tithonia seeds. Learn how easy it is to grow plants from seed! Propagating plants by seed is a budget friendly way to save money in the garden – and it’s fun!

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hey budget gardeners VCA here join me today as we sew flower seeds that need to be started indoors six to eight weeks before your average last frost date so let’s [Music] go I live in New Hampshire I Garden in USDA zone 5B based on my ZIP code my average last frost date is around May 15th today is March 29th I’m about 6 and 1/2 weeks away from my aage last Frosty today we’re going to be sewing the seeds for China Aster clei Salvia as well as Tonia what I’ll also do is in the description I’ll add links to any other videos that I’ve made having to do with starting seeds six to8 weeks before your average last frosting and if you want to just skip to the section where I talk about how to sew these seeds go to the timestamp shown below when it comes to starting seeds it’s not based on your hardiness Zone it’s actually based on your location and your average last frost date if you don’t know what date is check out the website below enter in your zip code and it should give you an approximate date there’s also a map on there that you can look at that’s a little more accurate another way you can find your average last frost date is just by doing a simple internet search you can say something like when is my average last frost date put in your location and it should give you a date I like to grow a lot of plants both indoors under my grow lights as well as Outdoors using the winter sewing method the reason is I have a lot of plants in my yard that I like to enjoy but I also grow a lot of plants to sell as part of my backyard plant nursery if you like the videos that you watch on my Channel please hit the Thumbs Up Button below it really helps my channel out but it also sends my videos out to other people who might also enjoy my content when it comes to seed starting there’s a lot of great information that you can find on a seed packet but often times the seed packet doesn’t have all the information that you need in order to start that particular seed and since I like to collect a lot of my seeds I don’t have any instructions so in order to find information I often do a search on the internet and I have a spreadsheet that I keep track of with all my seeds and I like to populate that spreadsheet with important information some of the information that I keep track of is how deep to plant the seed or if it needs light to germinate whether or not the plant will need to be pinched or not in order to encourage branching the optimal soil temperature that the seed needs in order to germinate in the approximate days for the seed to germinate there are a lot of great reputable websites out out there that have information that you’re looking for when it comes to starting seeds indoors a few of the websites that I like to go to in order to collect data include ball seed Botanical interests Johnny’s selected seeds as well as outside Pride there are also people’s blog pages that you can find information on personally I don’t like to just go to blog Pages because I don’t know who those people are and I’m not sure how knowledgeable they are when it comes to starting seeds I’m not knocking it I’m sure that there’s a lot of great information out there but personally I like to just go to companies and different companies websites and gather uh general information from all of those sites so for example if one site says the soil temperature should be 60 to 65° fahren and another site says 62 to 70° fhe I might just put an average between those and put that in my spreadsheet the bottom line is always do your own research and try to get your information from a place where you feel comfortable getting that information from every year when it comes to seed starting I start off on a great foot with winter sewing I start shortly after the winter solstice and I start sewing all my perennial seeds outside when it comes to indoor sewing I do a great job with sewing all those seeds that you start early on let’s say 12 or 14 weeks before your average last frost dat geraniums or impatience Bonia colus plants like that but then once I hit the seeds that you want to start around eight weeks before your average last frost aate I always fall short and I wondered the other day why is that and I think some of the reasons are I end up being so overly consumed with the plants that I’m starting indoors that are under my grow lights that I kind of lose track also I lose space I end up running out of room under my lights and I know some of you are running into the same boat and then finally the weather starts warming up outside so between doing my indoor seed starting of the plants I started during the winter months coupled with going outside and working in the yard I basically end up running out of time with starting any of the seeds that need to be started 8 weeks or less before my average last frost date I set a goal for myself this year and I said not again this year I’m going to be better about starting those seeds that need to be started eight weeks or less before my average last frost dat so I spent a lot of time I went through my whole entire bin of seeds and I pulled out only the flower seeds that need to be started between six to 8 weeks before my average last frost eight and there were so many seeds I couldn’t believe how many seeds there were and while I was going through all of those seeds I was very diligent about updating my spread sheeet so that next year I’ll have better tracking with when to start what seeds and what requirements each of those seeds need some of these seeds are fairly new I just recently collected them and some of the seeds are pretty old my goal is not necessarily to start all of the seeds but to start a little bit of each of the seeds and we’ll see what kind of germination rate I end up getting on average many of these seeds need about 70° F in order to germinate but I’ll be sure to pop up the exact information that I found on the screen as I start sewing the seeds I plan on starting almost all the seeds on a Seedling heat mat there was one seed that specifically said do not put it on a Seedling heat mat but other than that one seed everything else will get started on a Seedling heat mat and the reason is I just want to get these seeds going I’m a little behind because some of them should have been started probably 8 to 10 weeks ago so I just want to jump start the seeds I will say if your grow room is about 70° Fahrenheit and you’re fairly new to starting seeds IND doors use your own judgment I would recommend maybe not using a Seedling heat mat if you’re fairly new to starting seeds and the reason is when it comes to seedling heat mats even though they’re great and they can get your seeds germinating a little bit quicker on the flip side what can happen is that the soil can end up drying out a lot faster and unless you’re very diligent about checking all of your seeds and seeing if the soil’s drying out and then giving them some water you might want to skip using seedling heat mat it really is up to you but I just wanted to explain that I am going to be using the seedling heat mat and why I’m going to be using it we have a ton of seeds to sew so let’s get sewing here I have some seed starting mix I like to make my own seed starting mix and I’ll put a link to a video down in the description it’s basically two parts of Pete Moss but you can use cocoa core to one part of very fine vermiculite and then I add a small pinch of dolomite lime which helps offset the pH of the Pete Moss when it comes to starting seeds I prefer to use seed starting mix it’s not that expensive because I make my own you can definitely use potty mix if you like I also poured boiling hot water on my seed starting mix you want to use premoistened seed starting mix but also the boiling hot water helps kill any possible fungus eggs that might be in here when I squeeze my seed starting mix notice there’s no water dripping out but when I let go it’s holding its form and that’s the right consistency that you want for your seed starting or potting mix I like to use restaurant takeout containers because honestly they’re free to me and they make wonderful little green houses in fact this one has little vent holes in it which is wonderful because it in case it gets too hot in there and I did make holes in the bottom of the container because you want to bottom water your seedlings you don’t ever want to water them from above because that can introduce all sorts of problems so I’m going to go ahead and add my seed starting mix to my container and now I’m going to press on the seed starting mix I want to take out any air pockets that might be in there I don’t want to press too hard because I don’t want to compact the seed starting mix too much China asers like to be started 6 to8 weeks before your average last frost date they need light to germinate and the seeds germinate best when the soil temperature is about 70 to 72° F I will be using a Seedling heat mat but if your grow room stays that warm then the seedling heat mat is optional the seeds should germinate sometime within 10 to 14 days I will preface it by saying that these are old seeds there’s no guarantee that they’re going to germinate and that is true for any of your seeds that are older but the way I look at it is it’s better to sew them sew them heavily and even if one or two seeds germinate it’s fine so there aren’t many seeds left in this packet but we’re going to be sewing these seeds seeds and you can see they’re a mix of different colors and it’s hard to read all the information on the back but you can see that there is some basic information and when you see that the depth to sew is about 1/4 of an inch as long as you’re sewing the seeds so that they’re not very deep you should be fine and if you want you can always cover them with a light layer of vermiculite I had done my research and I had found that it’s okay to just press the seeds into the soil surface these seeds are very very old so I’d be surprised if they even germinate but it’s worth trying these are a salmon red Aster and again if you’re going to cover the seeds cover them with just about 1/4 of an inch of fine soil these seeds are quite old as well so we’ll find out together if any of them germinate these seeds are seeds that I collected they’re a few years old I’m hopeful that they should germinate it’s always a good idea to put labels especially if you have different varieties or colors of the same plant and in this case I am putting down the dat that was on the seeds just so I know that these are the super old seeds that these seeds are a little bit fresher and then today’s date and I added dividers so that I can separate the different kind of seeds I like to masso or multi- SEO seeds in a small container like this so that it saves room under my grow lights it’s also a great way to check the germination of seeds if these seeds aren’t going to germinate then I didn’t waste a lot of space under my grow lights and I also didn’t waste a lot of time let’s go ahead and sew these seeds first and that’s what the seeds look like there aren’t a lot of seeds so I’m just spreading them out the best that I can I highly encourage you to do this if you have seeds that are old there’s no use in wasting six cell packs in space under your lights but I get it that let’s say all of these seeds germinated now I need to pot them up and that’s additional work I don’t mind that process and it’s relaxing and I enjoy it but if it’s something that you don’t want to do you can definitely go ahead and just sew the seeds directly in six C packs I’m just pressing them down and again if I wanted to cover them I could just barely cover them when I did my research on these seeds I found that it said that they need light to germinate that’s why I’m not covering them if you wanted to use something like very fine vermiculite you could do that it would allow light to come in but it would also keep it so that the seeds don’t dry out as you wait for them to germinate and next we’re going to sew the salmon red Aster there’s quite a few seeds in there again if only one or two of them germinate I’ll be happy given how old the seeds are some of you might be wondering why do I have all these old seeds a lot of times when I start sewing my seeds I start in the winter time and by the time I am ready to sew any seeds that need to be started 6 weeks or eight weeks before my average last frost date I usually run out of space under my grow lights I know that sounds silly but I do like to start certain plants like impatients or adrums Bonas Peppers there are plants that need to be started much earlier and then I end up running out of room under my lights but this year I told myself it was a goal of mine to sew all of these seeds or as many as I can that need to be sewn eight weeks or less before my average last Frost because these seeds are doing no good just sitting there in my seed bin and that way next year I can start fresh if even a few of these germinate that’s great then I can collect the seeds from them and I’ll have new fresh seeds to start with and if none of these germinate that’s fine too at least I cleaned it out of my seed bucket and then I can go shopping for new Aster seeds or any other new seeds that I want to get that are fresher but the good thing is doing this process not only cleans these seeds out of my seed bin I did the research that I needed to do and the requirements that this seed as well as other seeds need to germinate and then I will have that information logged in my spreadsheet so that in the future I know exactly what the seed needs in order to germinate and now these are the seeds that I had collected and I’m imagining that these seeds that I collected were were from this plant over here because they seem like a similar name but I really don’t remember to be honest with you but bottom line is let’s hope that these seeds germinate since they’re only a few years old and yes we’re going to sew all of the seeds in the seed packet because I am cleaning up shop here I am getting rid of all of these seeds and we’re going to see what happens with all of the seeds here when I planted the aster in my yard a few years ago they looked so pretty when they bloomed they really are a pretty flower and in reality if I was to do what I’m doing right now over again I probably would have moved this divider over here more because you can see that there are a lot of seeds I’m putting in here and these are fresher seeds so there’s probably a higher chance these are going to germinate that’s okay like I said once they start germinating I’m going to be pricking them out individually and I’m going to be potting them up into six cell packs but then I will go ahead and cover this back up with the humidity Dome and then I will put this back on my seedling heat mat as more seeds hopefully germinate I will continue that process and any of the plants that germinate that get potted up into six cell packs those will not have a humidity Dome on those will not be on a Seedling heat mat and we’re going to go ahead and press the rest of these seeds in and the reason we’re pressing seeds in is to make sure that the seeds make good contact with the seed starting mix even if you were to cover any of your seeds during your seed starting Journey you always want to press the seeds into the seed starting mix I’m going to go ahead and give it a nice little Spritz of water that keeps the seeds wet it also helps settle them more into seed starting mix so I’m going to go ahead and add this cover notice that it’s clear and that’s good because these seeds need light to germinate and that will allow light to come in this will also keep the seeds moist now if you don’t have a cover like this you could use something like clear plastic wrap I’ll be placing this on a Seedling heat mat you don’t have to do that if your house or your grow room is warm enough these will be under LED shop lights they come on at 5:00 a.m. they go off at 900 p.m. they’re on a timer I have a bunch of clei seeds and these are all seeds that have been collected you want to start clei seeds 6 to 8 weeks before your average last frost AE the seeds need light to germinate so we’ll be pressing the seeds into the soil surface the seeds germinate between 70 to 80° fah soil temperature I’m planning to put these seeds on a Seedling heat mat and the seeds should germinate sometime between 7 to 14 days once clei seedling start to emerge and get a little bit bigger they can benefit from being pinched back to make a bushier plant I made my labels this one here that says Pam I’m growing some plants for my friend who also has a backyard plant nursery she’ll be selling some of her plants I’ll be selling some of mine as part of my backyard plant nursery and that’s true for many of the plants that I’m starting for seed this year and since a lot of these seeds are fairly new they were collected within the last year or two I’m not going to be sewing all of the seeds in each of the seed packet the reason is I don’t need that many plants and also I’m expecting very good germination So based on that I would rather sew part of the seeds and for whatever reason if there was an issue with the seeds germinating I have more seeds as a backup and I can always reso those seeds seeds we’ll start with these seeds first I don’t know the color so it’ll be interesting to find out what color they are and that’s a closeup of what the seeds look like let’s start sprinkling them on the surface but I don’t expect that we’re going to start all of these because that’s a lot of seeds many of these plants are new to me when it comes to Growing them from seed I do know when it comes to clei that it does sell sew pretty readily there’s an area where I Garden it’s basically a public garden space that I’ve adopted and there has been clei that has come back year after year so I know that when it drops its seeds often times I end up with free Plants again I’m sewing these very heavily you don’t have to do that and I’m sewing them in a restaurant takeout container you don’t have to do that you can do it in this Excel pack I’m only going to sew that many seeds for my friend PM if I end up with very good germination I’ll end up sewing more seeds probably within the next week just so that she has additional plants but I want to see how these do first I’m going to to press them in and after I press these in we are just going to keep on going and we’re going to just quickly sew the rest of our clei seeds [Music] now that that’s on this will get placed on a Seedling heat mat I’ve collected the seeds of many plants including clei I’ll put links to how to collect the seeds from these certain plants in the description below in case you want to check that out some of these I don’t know when the seeds were collected and some of them are just a few years old again I will only be sewing some of the seeds not all of the seeds [Music] when it comes to starting Salvia seeds I found that it’s going to vary sometimes you want to start them 6 to 8 weeks other times 10 to 12 weeks before your average last frosting it basically comes to researching your Salvia seed and making sure you’re starting it at the right time also sometimes it says to cover the seeds lightly and other times it says they need light to germinate I plan on just surface sewing them and we’ll see how they do Salvia seeds need about 70 to 80° fah soil temperature in order to germinate I’ll be placing these on a Seedling heat mat germination should happen about 5 to 10 10 days after sewing the seeds and you want to pinch back your Salvia seeds in order to encourage bushiness in your plant I will also share that all of these seeds are very old so when it comes to all these seed packets I’m going to be sewing all the seeds in each of those seed packets and when it comes to the seeds that I’ve collected since they’re not very old I’ll only be sewing part of the seeds not all of them [Music] [Music] [Music] the next set of seeds we’re going to sew are Tonia you want to sew the seeds 6 to 8 weeks before your average last frost date they need light to germinate so you want to press them into the soil surface or just barely cover them the seeds will germinate when the soil temperature is between 70 to 80° fenhe so I will be placing these on a Seedling heat mat you should start seeing germination for the seedlings around 7 to 14 days after sewing the seeds the seedlings can benefit from being pinched back which will ensure that you have a bushier plant with more blooms I do want to point out one thing these seeds right here I must have collected them a long time ago you tell me I think those are Cosmos but doesn’t matter we’re going to plant them and if they’re Cosmos they will come up but they you’ll see what I mean they do not look anything like a Tonia also I am sewing these from my friend Pam again for her backyard plant nursery when it comes to the seed packets that don’t have a lot of seeds in them I’ll just sew all of them you can see that I had opened the seed packet before and it is very old so we’re going to be sewing off all the seeds from this packet [Music] [Music] [Music] as you’re waiting for the seeds to germinate if you notice that the soil is starting to dry out you can just give the top layer a small Spritz of water however once the seedlings start to emerge at that point you should start bottom watering I’ll make additional videos once the seedlings have germinated when I get to potting them up fertilizing them pinching any seedlings back that need to be pinched back and then finally hardening off and getting the seedlings out in my landscape let me know in the comments if you are growing any of these plants either from seed or from plants that you’ve bought from the nursery and until the next video make it a great day with gardening [Music]