How to Grow a Sustainable Garden:
Growing and Transplanting Healthy Seedlings

Some vegetable plants such as radishes, carrots, and parsnips should never be transplanted. Others, like peas, beets, corn, and Swiss chard rarely justify the extra work, time, and space involved. Most vegetable plants, however, benefit greatly from being started in a protected indoor environment. Why? Because all plants are vulnerable to suffering from bugs and diseases when they are tiny, plus germination takes much longer when the soil is cold.

You can extend your growing season by several weeks and minimize bug damage just by learning how to grow and transplant healthy seedlings.

Indoor Seed Starting
How to “Fix a Flat”

1. Fill a standard 11 inch by 20 inch nursery flat with any combination of clean sawdust, peat moss and perlite, mixed with 25-30% concrete sand. Add 1 ounce of Pre-Plant Mix and ½ ounce of Weekly Feed Mix (see article on making your own plant food) and stir it evenly through the soil.
2. Water the soil in the flat well. With the edge of a ruler make 5 shallow furrows about 2 inches apart lengthwise across the flat. For small seeds such as tomato, pepper or eggplant, plant approximately 100 seeds per flat (20 seeds per furrow).
   
   
3. Gently cover the seeds with about 1/16 to 1/8 inch of soil
   (2½ times the seed thickness). Place burlap over the flat and carefully water again so as not to move the seeds.
   
   
4. Keep the soil moist, but not soaking wet in temperatures between 75 and 85 degrees Fahrenheit. No light is needed, but cold temperatures will kill germinating seeds, so pay particular attention to maintaining temperatures in this range if possible.
   
   
5. As soon as the first sprouts emerge, water through the burlap, then remove the burlap and place the flat in full light all day long. Waiting even a few hours will cause your plants to "stretch" looking for sunlight, and will create long, skinny, weak stems, from which your plants will never fully recover. Temperatures can now be cooler than for germination, but remember that your plants will go dormant if temperatures go much below 60 degrees Fahrenheit for any length of time.
   
   
6. Begin watering daily or as needed to maintain soil moisture, with a “Constant Feed” solution of 1 ounce Weekly Feed Mix to 3 gallons of water. (Click here to learn how to make your own Weekly Feed Mix.) Continue watering and feeding in this manner until plants are placed in your garden.
   
   
7. When your plants have at least one set of true leaves (not the seed leaves), but before they crowd each other and begin to stretch, transplant into 6-paks or 2” pots. Use your finger, a sharpened pencil or a 6 inch long dibble to make the planting hole. Plant deep, but do not bury the crown, or you’ll kill the plant. To see how it’s done, go here: http://webpages.csus.edu/~sac95710/transplanting.htm
   
   
8. When plant leaves begin overlapping, prune 2 or 3 leaves from each plant. This will shock the plant briefly, and it will make a thicker stem, then after a few days it will again extend the growing tip and produce new leaves. This procedure can be done twice without harming the plant.
   
   
9. When the leaves begin to overlap the third time, transplant into 4 inch or gallon pots, depending on your time schedule for planting in the garden and the amount of space in your greenhouse or growing area. Again, transplant deep, without covering the growing tip. When leaves overlap again, separate the pots to provide unrestricted light to all plants.
   
   
10. If your plants begin producing sucker stems, prune them all off, leaving only one main stem on each plant. And when the plants approach 12 inches in height push a small stick or dowel into the soil near the stem and tie the stem loosely, protecting it from falling over.

Following these procedures gives you plants with short, stocky and sturdy stems, very capable of handling the rigors of growing outdoors.

Transplanting Seedlings to the Garden

1. Harden-off all plants for two or three days by placing them outside on tables (never on the ground!) before planting in the garden.
   
   
2. Mark and make your planting holes on one side of the flat planting area of the soil bed next to the ridge as shown in the diagram. Make sure the holes are large enough to hold the seedlings’ root balls.
3. Water all seedlings before transplanting. Carefully turn each pot upside down and give it a sharp tap to release the seedling.
4. Plant deep and be careful not to cover any of the crown. Fill soil gently around the roots. Do not bruise the roots or break the root ball!
5. Immediately after transplanting, apply granular ammonium nitrate fertilizer (34-0-0) in a narrow band 4 inches away from the plant stems, using 8 ounces per 30 foot bed, or ¼ ounce per running foot. Water the nitrate into the soil.
   
   
6. Three days later begin feeding your plants with Weekly Feed Mix. (See article mentioned above.) Apply 16 ounces down the middle of each 18 inch by 30 foot soil bed (or ½ ounce per running foot of raised garden bed) and continue feeding weekly until 3 weeks before harvest.

You’re now well on your way to growing the best garden in town! Next week we’ll discuss weed control: how to weed wisely and well without working yourself to death or resorting to harmful herbicides. It's easier than you think!

Jim Kennard


Jim Kennard is President of the Food For Everyone Foundation, a non-profit organization with the mission of "Teaching the world to grow food one family at a time". You'll find many free vegetable gardening resources, including a gardening ebook, greenhouse plans, automated watering plans, and a free chapter from each of the great gardening books and software CD's Jim offers, at the website: www.foodforeveryone.org

Recommended Additional Reading:
Sustainable Gardening - An Overview
(also by Jim Kennard)