Day 14: Playing with Gardening by Dara Weaver

Having always been a nature-lover and maybe something of a hippie at heart, I went through a phase of believing that the most beautiful green and growing things were found just as they happened in nature: wild, unplanned, and spontaneous. Of course I still love wild naturescapes, but as I’ve gotten older and have spent so many years of my life striving to bring order out of chaos as I keep house and raise children, that I’ve had a growing appreciation for the beauty of order and form in the outdoor realm as well as in the indoor one. Nature and green growing things bring a sense of peacefulness and a connection to the earth we live in, and I think it is a human instinct to want to co-create with God in our little dominions.

Some of my best early memories are of times spent in my grandparents’ house and garden as a child. They not only had a backyard garden, but a cutting garden of flowers for the table, and my grandmother kept houseplants and had a ‘plant hospital’ in her basement with grow lights, a couple of different kinds of fertilizer, and a shelf of indoor gardening equipment. They never really taught me about gardening, per se, but by exposing me to the pleasure and delight of the beauty of growing things, I acquired a love for gardening that has followed me all my life.

Unfortunately, a love for gardening does not equal having the skills needed to get plants to thrive, or even survive. I used to joke that I was born with a black thumb, but time and practice have helped me realize two things: my grandparents’ secret to having a “green thumb” was knowing each plant’s requirements and giving them exactly what they needed to thrive (if it’s dying, it has an unmet need), and experience is the best teacher. So from the age of sixteen, I’ve been starting over at growing my own plants from seed every spring, and after all this time, I actually succeed every once in a while! I just can’t NOT try to grow something everywhere I live; it gives me such pleasure to get my hands dirty and coax life out of soil.

I’ve had many friends tell me they can’t grow anything to save their lives. It IS true that your first attempt might not succeed, but if you figure out what the problems were, you can learn from it and improve the next time you try. Of course starting simply and choosing plants, whether edible or ornamental, that will give you pleasure, will make your success and delight more likely. Because the possibilities for fun, small projects are endless (just look on Pintrest!), I’m going to focus on a part of gardening that is usually considered challenging, but can be tried any time of year indoors: starting plants from seed.

There are three initial considerations when starting seeds indoors: plenty of light, warmth, and moisture. Since it is almost impossible to get enough light with only a window (though a south-facing window might suffice in the winter, and a west-facing window in the summer), I’m going to provide specs for a cheap, easy clip-on grow light. For warmth, since I don’t prefer that my house temperature be kept as warm as 75-85 degrees for three seasons out of the year, I use a heating pad underneath the seedling tray. And for moisture, I make sure that my seed tray, whether store-bought or homemade, has a clear cover of some kind to hold in moisture, as seedlings like their environments to be kept very moist.

Equipment needed:

– a meat thermometer and roasting pan

– a seed starting tray with a clear top

– a small bag of seed starting soil

– seeds of your choice: I personally love to mix herbs and flowers, so my choice would be basil and the annual flower alyssum

– a spray bottle for water

– a heating pad

– an industrial clip lamp from a home repair store

– a Philips 120-Watt BR40 Agro Flood Plant Light Bulb- $7.97 at Home Depot

or Philips 75-Watt BR30 Agro Flood Plant Light Bulb- $6.97 at Home Depot

– optional: a timer to plug the lamp into so you don’t have to turn it on and off at certain times every day.

:: First prepare the soil: For simplicity, I buy a small bag of organic seed starting mix at the store, but because it comes pre-moistened, it needs to be sterilized before planting. This is a commonly unknown step, but skipping it can lead to ‘dampening off’: the death of young, seemingly healthy seedlings by invisible mold. To sterilize the soil, I put the soil in a large roasting pan covered in foil in the oven on 250 degrees for about 30 minutes or until the internal temperature is 180 degrees (measure the temperature with the meat thermometer). Once the soil is cooled all the way down, it’s ready for planting.

:: Fill the seedling tray with soil, and dampen with the spray bottle, or fill the bottom of the tray with water and wait for it to wick up and wet all the cubes of soil. It’s OK for it to be quite wet at this point. Drain off any excess water once all the soil is wet through.

:: Next, plant the seeds. My choice of basil seeds and alyssum seeds are both quite small, so they don’t need to be planted very deeply at all. I use a pencil to make shallow holes of 1/8 inch, drop in the seed, and use the pencil tip to push the dirt back around the seeds before tapping the top of the soil to pack it in gently. The seed packet should give you directions for how deep your seeds should be planted.

:: Moisten the seeds with the spray bottle one more time, just enough to ensure that the seed is wet, and cover with the clear cover.

:: Place the seed tray on a heating pad in the light from a southern window if winter, or a western window if summer, and set the heating pad on low.

:: Clip the plant light to lighten the side of the seed tray that gets less light from the window to balance the lighting.

:: Check the seed tray at least twice a day for moisture. The light should be turned on for 12 hours a day; I usually have it on from 8 am to 8 pm.

In about 5 days you should have baby seedlings pushing up though the soil! Once the seedlings emerge, you can turn off the heating pad. If you keep them moist until they have second leaves, at which time you can transplant them, then you will have beautiful baby plants to enjoy! I like to transplant my seedlings into disposable pots made from newspaper (you can google how to make these if you wish), but they can be transplanted into the pot of your choice. If you keep them indoors, they will need the plant light during normal daylight hours in order to be happy, as well as regular feedings of organic fertilizer.

There are many fun options for small gardening projects… you can decorate a porch or patio with pots of herbs and flowers, plant a “pizza garden” in triangle “slices” in a circle garden bed (tomatoes, basil, peppers, etc), keep miniature African Violets in a teacup on the kitchen windowsill, or grow morning glories up the mailbox. Just remember that successful gardening is a skill and requires practice! Don’t give up if you’ve failed in the past- keep trying and you will be blessed with a new, enjoyable skill that you can pass on to your children.