Presenting Food in My Back Yard: Starting in seed starting

February is prime seed-starting month for summer vegetables that should be started indoors. That primarily is tomatoes and all varieties of peppers, as well as eggplant. And that's because of how long it takes to produce a plant that will be big enough to transplant when the weather and soil are warm enough.

Tomato seeds started now should be ready to plant out in early April. More important than the date, though, is when the soil temperature is consistently 60 degrees or above.

Note: Seeds are still a bargain, but the first year of seed starting usually involves a little bit of an investment. You do NOT need a full seed-starting system -- fancy lights and all -- that online garden companies are so eager to sell. As much as possible, repurpose items you already have around the house or garden. Tip: Explore your local dollar store, where I recently found compressed coir bricks, several sizes of trays, a small watering can, clothes pins and sets of small pots for later transplanting.

Now, before you begin ripping open seed packages, here's an important List of Necessities for Seed Starting:

-- Source of warmth. Summer vegetables all need warm soil to germinate. The warmest room in the house plus a seed-starting mat often is the best combination, especially for peppers, which are notoriously slow to germinate (more on that below). For years I've used the top of my refrigerator for most of my tomatoes. Other warm spots could include an area near a heating vent, on top of a cable box, or over a box containing old-fashioned Christmas lights. (The heat needs to be consistent, so those lights would have to stay on.) Fancier heating mats have thermostats. Now you also need:

-- Planting medium. Pre-mixed seed starting mix, available in bags, is a good choice for a beginner. The medium should be light, with some vermiculite and/or perlite, but should not feel like sand. And don't confuse seed starting mix with potting soil, which can be too heavy for seeds to push their first roots out. To make your own seed starter mix, one reliable combination is equal parts perlite, coir and fine compost. The compressed pellets filled with coir or peat often are a good choice if you want to start just a few seeds, or need to distribute them, as for a class project.

-- Containers. To hold the medium, use clean plastic six-packs (purchased or reused), toilet paper tubes, individual containers made from newsprint (assuming you can find a paper these days) or clean plastic yogurt containers with holes punched in the bottom. Drainage is crucial, so set the containers in a tray or dish that can handle some heat. I like to reuse plastic containers from salad greens to hold my sixpacks. Plastic food storage containers and old Pyrex casseroles also are excellent for this. You'll also need something such as plastic wrap to cover the container to keep in moisture (though not vacuum airtight). Yes, you also need:

-- Source of moisture. The medium for the seeds needs to stay moist but not soggy. Drainage is important. "Damping off" (when a seedling collapses suddenly) can occur when the surface of the medium is too cold and wet. This is why one trend of starting in eggshells (as if you could afford it right now!) is not recommended. Here's a great summary of "damping off" causes and prevention. Then there's:

-- Darkness. Seeds need to be buried at the proper depth -- check the package. And a darkened room or area helps. That's until shoots appear. Then you'll need:

-- A source of light. If you've ever seen a leggy transplant, you know it is a plant that has been screaming for light -- and trying to find it. Once seeds are germinated, you'll remove the cover (the plastic wrap, for example) and move the seed container into the light. Ideally, that's under a movable light source, such as a fluorescent work light that can be raised and lowered. For seedlings, the light should be just a few inches (but not touching) the top leaves. A sunny south-facing window can work, but you'll have to remember to turn the plants daily so they grow straight. They still need some darkness -- at least 6 hours a day. But good light is crucial.

-- Patience! Also attention. Seeds grow on their own time, but they can't be left alone for days, like a pet fish. Check in on them daily or twice a day, to see if the soil has dried out, the light needs moving, or even if they've sprouted.

Other items I've found useful: Tweezers for grabbing seeds; wooden skewers for poking holes -- especially one marked with measurements 1/4-inch, 1/2-inch and 1-inch for checking soil depth; pencils; wooden clothes pins (great for marking sixpacks or closing seed packages); a short dowel for tamping soil over seeds; painter's or masking tape for attaching plastic wrap to sixpacks.

We're mostly talking about tomatoes and peppers right now. Eggplants can be started now, too. Want to start beans, corn, cucumbers, melons, squash or pumpkins? Around Sacramento, those are best grown via direct seeding in the garden, and will need the warm soil of late April, all of May and June, even early July.

My last bit of advice: Be realistic about how many plants you're starting. I start two or three tomatoes per variety for myself, in case of mishaps, and four to six per variety that I plan to share. That's still quite a few, easily 72 to 80 plants. And that's before the peppers!

This is a lot of information for one post, but I do have to include these excellent links to continue the seed-starting discussion:

The Sacramento master gardeners' website has many links to great seed-starting and growing information. The home vegetable page is here. Scroll down to find links to these PDFs:

-- Seed packet information explained. (GN 128)

-- Chart for optimum soil temperature conditions for vegetable seed germination (GN 154)

-- Vegetable planting schedule, including seeding indoors (EHN 11)

-- Vegetable gardening 101, a 7-page guide to everything, but it includes starting seeds. (EHN 96)

And Farmer Fred Hoffman has a great post on the best ways to get stubborn pepper seeds to germinate (on his page at this point).