Gardening Tips & Techniques – Page 12

We just planted some brussels sprouts seeds in our diy seed starting trays and the broccoli will be added just as soon as those seeds arrive. We've been receiving our mail order vegetable and annual flower seeds for this season over the past couple of weeks and compiled a seed planting schedule to help us keep everything on track (you can download a copy here). When beginning a vegetable garden, you need to be concerned with the first and last days of frost in your area and plan accordingly. Our garden is located in central Utah and we're estimating our average last frost around the second week of May - so we're basing our estimated planting times off that. After determining the average last frost for our area, we just followed the directions on each seed packet for how many weeks ahead that they needed to be planted. Here's a video of Jim Kennard, President of the Food for Everyone Foundation, demonstrating how to plant seeds in the Mittleider seed flats: https://youtu.be/AD6WyJ88YWo Once the seeds are planted we place the trays on foil backed insulation and a thermostat controlled heating mat. I also purchased a moisture sensor to help keep me from overwatering (I have some sensitivity issues that make it difficult to determine moisture by just sticking my finger in the soil - I'm hoping the sensor will help me with that). We gently water through regular cupboard/drawer liner to prevent the seeds from washing around that we bought from Lowes but you can use burlap or cheesecloth or a fine mister just as easily. Once the seeds have sprouted, we remove the liner and begin watering with the Mittleider Constant Feed. Our watering can of choice is a tin can that we've punched a whole bunch of holes in the bottom of using a hammer and a small nail. Make your own Constant Feed Diluted Seedling Fertilizer The formula for the Mittleider Constant Feed is 1 oz. Weekly Feed to 3 gallons of water. To make your own diluted seedling fertilizer: add 3 gallons of water to a bucket. take about 2 or 3 cups of that and put it in a blender (Vitamix works awesome!) add one ounce of Mittleider Weekly Feed to the blender and mix - you can get the weekly feed recipe to make your own inexpensive plant food here. (opens in new window) stir that back into the bucket and begin using! Stir before each use and use this for every watering while your seedlings are in trays/containers. This diluted fertilizer is safe enough to give the seedlings the nutrition they require without damaging or burning, getting them off to a vigorous and healthy start!