Winter can sometimes be very long, especially for a gardener. It is hard for us to stay indoors in the cold weather when we want to be outside working in our garden year-round. However, you can start your growing season early by starting seeds indoors. I have taken up the hobby of starting seeds indoors and it has continually expanded every year because I am enjoying it so much.
Starting Seeds Indoors
When starting transplants, use good quality seed and a sterile soil or soil-less mixture. For growing media, you can use potting soil, or a soil-less mixture that contains vermiculite, perlite, and/or peat moss. Choose growing media that is lightweight and well-drained and has been moistened prior to adding to planting containers.
Start the seeds in seed trays or other types of peat containers. You can reuse pots or seed trays from previous years, just make sure it is cleaned from year to year. You can recycle old food containers or make your own from newspapers or toilet paper tubes. Be sure that all recycled containers are cleaned thoroughly prior to use and have good drainage or drainage holes are punctured into the container.
Plants should be grown in temperatures between 70 and 75 degrees. Too cold or too warm can reduce the rate of germination or the plants may grow leggy or improperly. Seedlings need 12-16 hours of light per day. This light should be kept about 1 inch above the plants, as they grow, this light should be moved up with the seedlings. The light source can be as simple as a utility or shop light with one cool and one warm fluorescent bulb. Many lights for growing plants have a built-in timer to keep the lights on for up to 12 hours, but you can always purchase an inexpensive outlet timer to keep it on for 12-16 hours and off for the rest of the evening. The light should not be on continuously for 24 hours.
When to Start Plants
It is best to wait until after our last frost to plant transplants of warm season crops into the garden. It takes about 6-8 weeks to grow tomatoes and peppers from seed, so count backward from Mother’s Day to determine when to start the plants indoors. Since Mother’s Day this year is on May 8, you can start tomatoes and peppers in the next couple of weeks. I plant my tomatoes at 7-8 weeks prior to planting and the tomatoes at 6 weeks prior to planting as the tomatoes will grow faster.
Transplanting Outside
Prior to transplanting outdoors, plants should be hardened off to acclimate them to the outdoor conditions. 1-2 weeks ahead of planting outdoors begin moving your plants outside gradually into more wind exposure and more sunlight for longer periods of time as the hardening off period goes on. Plants started indoors have not developed a thicker cuticle to sustain Nebraska winds, so they need to be put into wind gradually to push them to grow stronger. They also are not used to the intensity of sunlight outdoors. Putting them from your home to outside abruptly could cause the plant to snap off in high winds or develop sunscald on the leaves.
If you have any further questions please contact Nicole Stoner at (402) 223-1384, nstoner2@unl.edu, visit the Gage County Extension website at www.gage.unl.edu, or like my facebook page at http://www.facebook.com/NicoleStonerHorticulture and follow me on twitter @Nikki_Stoner
Nicole Stoner
Extension Educator
Gage County
March 2024