Gardenfork
Starting seeds indoors
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Eric: Here we are, in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This is one of my favorite places to be, in New York City. And we are going to talk to them about how they do their seed starting. You have seen how Eric does his seed starting. Now we are going to come here and see how the professionals do it. So let us go.
So we are here this morning, at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden with Monika and Monika is going to talk about how they do their seed starting and how they grow plants which is probably much better than how I do it. So we thought we would come to the experts and Monika is going to give us a bit of a tour here and a little how to, and I think you will enjoy it. So here we go.
Monika: Welcome to our education greenhouse. This is a space that we use for children and adults who are involved in our education programs here at the garden. We grow plants here from seed and then we grow plants from cuttings and we have various plants for display for our programs.
So what we will be doing today is starting out by planting some vegetable and flower seeds to transplant into our children’s garden. We have some seeds which include pepper and tomatoes and larkspur. These are very popular vegetable plants which you are probably all familiar with and they grow out in the children’s garden during the summer but we start them ahead of time here in the education greenhouse. As they grow into their seedling state, we transplant them into the garden after the last frost has passed.
Eric: How do you determine when the last frost is?
Monika: There is a general range of dates depending on your climate zone that you are in. The climate zone for New York City in our region is May 15. That is our last frost date. And we are in climate zone 6b. We consider generally, May 15th, after any day after May 15 to be safe for planting.
Eric: It is safe to take them outside after May 15. All right, thank you.
Monika: So let us get started with the tomatoes to start out with. The seeds are very small and there are not many seeds per packet so we plant them very carefully in our containers. This is a seed starting tray. You can see it has good drainage and is pretty light weight container, very flexible. And this is the seedling mix that we use. It is a very light weight potting mix. It has a combination of bark, perlite, vermiculite, light weight potting materials so that they do not overpower the seeds. But that, they provide a nice firm bed for the seeds to grow in.
Eric: I have never heard of using bark in it. Is that a secret recipe thing or it is?
Monika: It is not really a secret recipe. People are using bark more and more these days as an alternative to peat which is an unsustainable material that has traditionally been use in potting mixes. We do have some peat that we use in certain containers especially for our tropical and aquatic plants. But we are trying to get away from it because it is not as sustainably harvested. Bark is ubiquitous, it is found everywhere around here.
Eric: I use compressed coconut fiber bricks that you soak in water and they explode.
Monika: Great, great! Yes, those are terrific too. Coconut fiber and coconut core is a heavier material like peat and it is better for heavier plants for tropical plants that like more water. Because the core actually absorbs water and holds on to it more like a sponge. Whereas the bark is a lot more light weight and allows for more drainage. It has bigger chunks and so allows for more pore space.
Eric: So I should start using bark.
Monika: For seed starting, bark is the way to go because it is the most light weight and easiest to work with.
Eric: Okay.
Monika: Okay. So I am filling my container, three quarters of the way here, spreading it smoothly with my fingers. And, I am going to start out by just broadcasting these tomato seeds right across the top. You see the smaller seeds, the smaller the seed, the less deeply it has to be planted. So the very tiniest seeds, some of our really small seeds, basil, even smaller seeds like orchids
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