Sowing My First Round of Flowers for My Container Garden! 9 Varieties of Gomphrena

Gomphrena is in my top 5 of must have flowers in my garden. This year, I’m trying 9 varieties, 4 of which are completely new to me! If you are growing any other varieties let me know so I can add them to my list!

Jiffy seed starting kit I like: https://amzn.to/49Icioe
Jiffy seed starting kit I like a little less: https://amzn.to/3P9esFa

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Hey everyone today I’m finally starting my first round of warm weather seeds and these are technically the first seeds I’m starting inside for my garden I did start some of the seeds for me TV which I still have I don’t know if I’m going

To hold on to them until May or what I’m going to do but I don’t have the heart to just get rid of them now although I have already sewn some cool weather crops I just prefer to sew those directly outside it’s easier and the root vegetables prefer that anyways so

It’s really my warm season annuals that I start indoors and for me that’s going to be mostly flowers again with a smaller Garden if I’m only getting like one two or three of a certain plant it’s a lot easier TimeWise and honestly a lot of the times it can be cheaper to just

Go and get a transplant from a garden center and plant that in the garden once you factor in the cost of like all the seed starting equipment but I’m going to start my D frina seeds today and if you’re in the Chicago area really around like mid-march is a good time to start

Your seeds a lot of these I won’t even start till April one of the hardest things with following other gardeners in other growing zones that are warmer than mine online is that I get the urge to start seeds sooner than I really should but my goal and what I recommend is I

Don’t want to have a bunch of giant plants in here because I started them out way too early and then have to worry about taking care of them what I like to do is start my seeds and try to time it so that I actually don’t have to pop

Them up from this size here although I think I am going to have to pot up some of my seedlings so today I’m just doing gamina which I have nine varieties of it’s the most I have ever grown amrina are one of my favorite flowers in general but also for small gardens

Because they are so productive I’m also somebody who loves drying flowers and they are fantastic to dry they look almost identical to how they look when they’re growing in the garden and the last really long time if you are using them in bouquet so for me they’re one of

My favorite plants that’s why I’m GR growing more varieties than I’ve ever grown before do I have enough room for all of these that I’m going to start today absolutely not so I’m going to talk through what I use to start my seeds first then I’ll go through the gum

Frina varieties which are currently soaking on the table that you can’t see but I’ll go through them and all the varieties that I’m going to try this year but ever since I really started gardening 2018 2019 I’ve always used these Jiffy Peete pellet green houses I got them just because that’s what was

Available at Home Depot and I really like the Simplicity of them because everything you need to start your seeds comes in here except for light water and the actual seeds but the growing medium is in here you make a little Greenhouse so that your seeds can germinate a

Little bit faster I really like these and the best part is so this one here is a new one obviously because it has the wrapping still on it but once I plant these pee pellets out into the garden I can just buy more pee pellets and then

Reuse this greenhouse I can also use this greenhouse for propagating my house plants like my string of Hearts so I’ve done that a few times so I get a lot of use out of this and for me especially when I was just starting off gardening it’s a lot easier to use something like

This than have to worry about getting my seed starting trays getting the specific soil that I’m going to need the mess of kind of putting that all together so for me this is just what I prefer and I’ve stuck with it ever since I specifically like the ones for tomatoes and

Vegetables there is one I don’t know if it’s called for flowers it’s the same size Greenhouse but there’s 72 pellets instead of 36 these are twice the size of the flower ones which if they’re larger it again allows more growing time for the seedlings before I would need to pop

Them up so I’m definitely using this I love these what I got also so when I was going to start the seeds from ETV I wanted to get just a smaller greenhouse and I found this one I think on Amazon there’s 34 in here they are the smaller

Version but also this greenhouse is just not that it’s super complicated but it’s just slightly more complicated than this so I don’t love this as much but since I have it I’m going to use it so Within These two pellets I’m going to fill them

Both of Gina this one has 36 this one has 34 even though the cells are small smaller so it’s 70 total pee pellets I have nine varieties so that’s about seven of each if I was going to split them all evenly but based on where I’m

Going to grow them there’s some that I know I’ll need fewer of and there’s some that I think I’ll want more of so I’m probably not going to do just a straight seven seven seven seven seven of all of the nine varieties so what I’m going to

Do now is get these set up because you do have to fill them with water and wait for the pee pellets to absor absorb the water before you start planting so we’ll get these set up I’ll kind of go through the two different processes for each of

These and then I’ll go through the gum frina that I’m growing and I’ll probably also put in some videos from the past season so you can see where I grow it and how it looks because obviously right now you’re just going to be looking at seeds not any G freom plants let’s start

With the one I like more just because again it’s it’s not like it’s a super long and complicated process for the other one I just think it could have been simpler like this one is so as I’m completely tearing this label apart so the instructions are on here in the section

Four easy steps so the first thing you do is Place pellets in the watertight tray which they’re already in there add an inch and a half of warm water drain the excess water oh let me grab something really quick so when I made the video about all of my seed starting

Equipment I did mention that one of the things I don’t like as much is dumping these out because the trays aren’t super sturdy they are a bit flimsy especially when they’re filled with water and someone said to get a turkey bter to suck the water out so that’s what I did

So thank you was someone on a comment on one of my videos I think it was that video thank you so much I’m excited to do this this year it’s going to make it a lot easier and less messy because every year in the past I have spilled

Water so then we let them expand they’ll expand to about 2 to 2 and a half inches tall then you add the seeds and that’s it you put the cover on and wait for them to germinate so you see how that is like I just have to pour water in here

So let me take the lid off and set that here this is a plant vitamin for seedlings and it also comes with labels so I love that it comes with everything I need I toss that over there let’s move this onto the floor and then let’s go through this one

So this one again is small smaller pellets and a smaller container overall this one actually comes with a wicking mat so unlike this one where the pellets themselves are sitting in the water once you have your seedlings planted the water is underneath them they’re lifted up a little bit and then it’s wicking

Onto this mat so with this one you have to take out the pellets set them just over there for now then you take this which comes in the bottom of the tray and you align so you see there’s little Nubs in there you align the Nubs on this with the Nubs on

That so let’s Getti that in there and that’s what just lifts the peach pellets off of the bottom of the tray here then you take this wicking mat and you place it inside and then you have to tuck the edges underneath because they have have to touch the water in order to

Wick it up for the pee pellets so you have to tuck that in there and then you can place the P pellets back in here now again is this super complicated no but I’m a person that likes as few steps as possible so that’s why I still

Prefer this tray compared to this tray my seedlings did fine though like they started fine I did have to pop them up because they outgrew these peed pellets much faster than those peed pellets but in general it’s like if I can do fewer steps I’d rather take that option but

They both work so now what I need to do is add warm water to both of these and then just wait for them to expand so I’ll add the warm water now and then we’ll go over the different Gina varieties I’m going to grow I’ve actually had this picture sitting out

From watering my house plant so I’m just going to fill this one first I’m going to estimate I might need about four to five pictures of water to get these filled and then sometimes if palette hasn’t fully expanded I’ll just take it out and put it like directly in a

Pitchure of water until it expands on its own it usually happens with a couple of them in each of the trays that I’ve used before so the first one was a half pitcher let’s see if a full pitcher now gets us to where we need to be with

That inch and a half of water and I think for this small one that’s going to work out perfectly I’m going to go ahead and let this one sit now and then we’ll fill this one up first picture in here and this is just going right on top of everything so

Again these pellets in this tray aren’t elevated so the water just goes directly into where they are sitting and picture number two and this is the exact same way you’re going to water once your seedlings are in there and growing so this one you water until you hit like

The underside of the reservoir and then it’s going to soak in this one you just pour water directly in there there and then I’ll wait until it seems like a lot of the moisture has been absorbed and then anything remaining that’s what I dump out which I’m going to do with the

Baster this time instead of trying to balance and carry the tray over to the sink or I think sometimes I’ve just like done it out onto the deck as well so I think that’s good so a little bit under two pitches I’m going to check the time

And we’ll see how long it takes for them to expand shouldn’t be more than like 10 minutes and now let me show you all of my gfer varieties I think there are four varieties that are completely new to me this year so I have had all my gamina

Seeds soaking for about 24 hours the first two years I grew gamina I never soaked them because the seed packet didn’t say too in general they do take slightly longer to germinate and slightly longer to grow compared to the other annual flowers that I start and then Aaron from impatient gardener on

Instagram told me to try soaking the seeds so I did that for the first time last year and it definitely sped up up the germination this year when I bought some of the seeds from baker’s Creek that’s the first time I’ve had a seed packet that actually said to soak for 24

To 48 hours the other seed packets don’t so I don’t know if it’s like a brand thing or what but I’ve always found that pre- soaking them does definitely speed up the germination for gamina so now let me show you the ones that I’m going to grow so we have nine varieties here

Soaking in various vessels first two I think I’m the most excited for now obviously not all of them have photos the ones that don’t I will throw some photos up so you can see what they look like on the left is qis salmon and then

Qas rows on the right those I’m going to start more of so like I said I’m going to start fewer of some more of others I think I want more of these and these are going to go on the back deck then I have the three from Baker Creek which is

Again the only ones that said to soak them first is Strawberry Fields you can obviously see what these are going to look like Strawberry Fields I’ve grown before I didn’t last year and I really missed not having the pop of red from myrina so I added it back this

Year then I have two more new varieties to me which is the gamina Snow White and the gamina lavender lady as I’m going through this if there are gamr varieties that I’m not showing you let me know cuz my goal is to grow all of them at some

Point then over here are kind of my tried and true I started getting gamina from Johnny Seed it’s kind of my go-to at first I’ll all the varieties they have and order those and then start to look at other websites for additional colors but these I’ve all grown before

So the first one here is the raspberry cream it’s a really pretty like not super light pink qis pink is very light this is more of a well a raspberry cream colored but it’s more of the pink that I was hoping for then we have the Audrey

Purple red this is a very vibrant purpley red color I love it compared to qis purple which again was kind of lighter than I’d hoped for and it had a little B bit of white on it these are like a more true vibrant purple then we

Have what I think is my favorite color I’ve grown we’ll see how the new ones compare is qis Carmine I just love that hot pink color it’s one of my favorite colors of flowers just in general so and I think this was my original gam frina

The very first gamina I ever grew and then last I have my qis orange which is a very traditional brightly colored Orange I like in my garden the bright colors on the front the caling colors on the back so I think of these Rasberry cream lavender Lady Snow White and then

The salmon and the rose are going to go on the back deck everything else will go in the front and I have one specific rised bed that I’ve grown gamina in every single year so it’s just become my gamina bed I also grow them in I’ve

Grown them in 8 inch pots which they did well enough I think that’s probably like slightly smaller than they wanted but it worked I’ve also grown them in 12 in pots I always cut my spacing down in fact let me see what the spacing is the recommendation is 6 to8 in apart I

Probably go four to five I don’t think I go any smaller than that maybe I have but about four to 5 in and that just creates a really full look these are one of the lowest maintenance flowers I really don’t have issues with pests on

Them I don’t think I ever have um never any issues with diseases no powdery milder or anything like that I know as I’m speaking this out loud it means it’s going to happen this year but in general very very low maintenance flowers they do bloom a little bit later maybe like

Mid to late July they start flowering but they last really long into the season and because they dry so well someone this early winter mentioned to me that they left some of their gamina out in the garden as visual interest and I think that’d be really pretty to do

With especially the red gum frina for like a christmy look assuming it holds his color I don’t really know how it’s going to hold this color actually let me show you really quick what they look like dried so I have here in this basket I have the Carmine up front qis orange

And then this is the Audrey purple red and then everything else in here is status so those are the three colors one second those are the three colors that I still have of the ones that I dried I mean they’re maybe slightly less vibrant than they were in the garden you can see

How vibrant the colors still are so they hold those colors really well which is why I love them so much this larger Jiffy pet pack is expanded and is ready to be planted so I’m using two things to plant with I have a paintbrush here

Which has come in much more handy than I ever thought it would for gardening so I use it for planting my seeds I use it for like hand pollinating um and then I also use it for propagations and rooting cuting into the soil with house plants

So I’m just going to go through here and what I do is you kind of want to break up this top layer here and then you make a little hole and that’s it and then I do also have a tell because when I go to

Get the seeds out my fingers get wet and I find that when you have damp fingers and you’re touching seeds they often stick so I kind of like to just dry occasionally in between all the seeds that I’m planting so I’m going to start with my qas salmon and my qis rose I

Think I’m going to do eight of each of these and then also I need my tags so that’s another thing this one came with tags and oh I didn’t put this in I was supposed to mix this in with the water I’ll mix it in with the first like watering of my seedling

So I will hold on to this but this one doesn’t come with that so that’s just another small thing that leads me to liking this one a little bit bit more so let’s go ahead and get these planted now there is water in here I’m just going to take my

Picture and slowly and carefully dump out the water trying to block the seeds from falling out these are pretty small seeds I mean I’ve planted smaller but they’re definitely on the smaller side of the flower seeds that I plant now typically the smaller the seed the less deep it wants to be

Buried these only want to be bued about an eigh of an inch deep so I’m not even going to really go down that far in here but what I like to do so I have eight of these I’m going to do I’m just going to kind of get all eight of these cells

Ready and then I’ll make my 1 18 of an inch again very very shallow holes in here and then we are ready for planting I so these are new seeds so germination should be pretty good I’m still going to plant two seeds per pellet just to increase the chances of

Germination I might do three if it were seeds that were a little bit older like for example the peas maybe only did two of the peas but if I have some flower seeds that are like two three years old then I might do three seeds per pellet

Also you want to make sure you’re not soaking more than you intend into plant or at least not a lot more because you don’t want to soak them and then not use them and then like dry them and reso them so make sure that you’re soaking the amount that you want to actually

Plant that is good to go that’s my first seeds that I’m starting inside I’m really excited so now I’m just going to very lightly cover them back up some seeds do like to be surface zon so they don’t want to be covered at all um maybe

Just like a Sprinkle of soil or some vermiculite on them I am going to add vermiculite at the end will’ll do that once I get everything planted now before I move on I’m going to take a label and label these seeds so this is salmon now I should be able to

Remember that this whole tray is gamina but I’m going to write gamina at least on the first label here but usually if I do like one tray of one type of plant that’s pretty easy and then I’m just going to stick the label right in one of those cells so

Then we’ll do eight of the rows next I do still have some seeds in here so let’s move these out of the way and I’m just going to go through the same process so I’ll kind of speed through this because it can get pretty repetitive but that’s essentially what I

Do to get all these seeds Planted All of my gun Frid seedlings are planted and I cannot wait for germination so in the larger Pete pet pack I have four of the orange so the brighter colors I know are just going to go in the front rised bed so I don’t need as many so I have

Four orange I did eight lavender lady eight Snow White eight Rose eight of the salmon and then in this pack I did four the or no not four five of the strawberry six of the Audrey purple red six raspberry cream and then 17 of the

Carmine I will not be planting 17 of the car mine so I will will definitely give those away when the time comes but everything is now planted the last step is putting vermiculite on top of them so I think I first learned this from garden answer but by putting vermiculite on the

Top of the soil it’s supposed to prevent the fungus that cause dampening off which will kill your seedlings I’ve never not done it I’ve never had issues with dampening off but I’ve also never not put vermiculite on so I don’t know for sure that it is the vermiculite but

Since it hasn’t happened I’m going to keep doing what I’ve been doing so I’m just going to sprinkle some of this on top of everything and I’ll show you kind of where I’m going to put these to wait for germination so just little sprinkle across the top here not too

Much I think I’ve used this same bag like this is probably the third year that I’ve had the same bag so it’s not like it takes a lot now I’m going to cover with the domes I’m going to leave on until they germinate and I’ll show you where

I’m going to place these while I wait for germination now I know a lot of people use heat mats because the heat can help speed up the germination I have never had heat mats I don’t know the difference then between like how long it takes to germinate but I’ve never had an

Issue with my plants germinating eventually and because heat mats aren’t something I would use for a lot of the time I feel like I’d maybe use them for like two months and then have to store them somewhere for the rest of the 10 months of the year so if I don’t

Absolutely need it or if it didn’t make a huge difference I mean now maybe if I got them and saw the difference I’d want them but for me it’s not really something I feel like I’ve missed so I don’t want to spend the money on like 10

Heat mats and then again storing them through the rest of the year I’m just fine not doing that but I do put these in a bathroom which is kind of the warmest part on this floor so let me move these over there and then I will

Show you where they are they’re now in the bathroom counter up here and this is where they will stay until they germinate so they don’t need light or anything so I’m going to keep the lights off but this is a relatively warm area of the house and of course I’ll probably

Be checking like every six hours just to see when they start to sprout but once I have most of the cells germinated is when the domes will come off and then I will take them over to my grow light these are the seeds I started for me TV

Again don’t know what I’m going to end up doing with these um but they’ll just go under these grow lights once they are mostly all sprouted and that’s where they’ll stay until they’re warm enough to move outside so that’s everything for today’s video I’m excited to have all of

My gamr seeds sewn for the season I probably won’t start my next round until two weeks from now and then everything else will be sewn in April again I know it’s exciting to start but if you can hold off so that you’re not working with a bunch of giant plants trying to find

Spots for them uh when I first started my deck Garden in 2019 at our last place I started Tomatoes Inside in early March and by the time they were ready to go outside they were huge and I had like 20 even though I only had space for three

And keeping them alive was a bit of a pain so I try to avoid that now but I’ll keep you updated on how they do I’ll obviously show you as I get the rest of my seeds started that’s going to be everything for the this video so I will

See you in the next one bye