Germination Ideas, Tips & Guides

When and How to Start Seeds in a Greenhouse

Two lots of pressies in one week, I felt totally spoilt today. The previous week had been immensely busy (no change there really), and Saturday was full of household chores and shopping. Sunday was Mother’s Day and the weather was going to be a little “meh” in the morning but brightening up in the afternoon, but I was planning on being in the garden/greenhouses for as much of it as I could. The kids bought me in a cup of tea and my presents.

It’s not usual that you can plan ahead for when you’re going to have to spend a day in bed, because you never know when you’re going to be ill. But later this evening I am having my first Covid jab and knowing how it wiped out my husband for an entire day was starting to worry me a little.

It doesn’t happen very often that I have an afternoon free during the week, but today I did. So it was the perfect time to sow all my April seeds, inside and out. After lunch I grabbed a cup of tea and my April box of seeds and off I went to the greenhouses to start.

The perfect Sunday for me would be to start with a bit of bell ringing (still not allowed to do that yet because of this pandemic, but hopefully back fairly soon), then when I get home, grab a cup of tea and then go straight out into the garden and be there for the rest of the day.

It’s still January, but only just and I’ve just sown my January seeds. I’m not late, I’m just in time!

Planting pepper seeds isn’t difficult and is the best way to enjoy the diverse range of sweet and hot pepper varieties available through seed catalogs. There are several ways you can approach starting pepper seeds. The most common method is to sow the seeds in pots or cell packs filled with a seed-starting mix. The second option is to pre-sprout the seeds using the paper towel method. Both are easy and effective and the first step to growing a bounty of homegrown peppers. This article walks you through each technique and offers tips for success.

The reasons for growing your own seedlings are many, and making your own DIY seed starting mix is a good way to reap even more benefits. Starting your own seeds not only allows you to grow a greater diversity of varieties, it also saves money, gives you more control, and is downright fun. If you’re still buying commercial seed starting mixes, now is a great time to try making your own. This article explains the ingredients you’ll need, how to mix up a batch, and even offers a few of my favorite seed starting soil recipes.

How to Grow and Care for Mexican Fan Palms Washingtonia robusta

Licuala Grandis – a plant that stands out with its large, fan-shaped leaves, that can make it a focal point of any room! A spectacular specimen for anyone seeking a “foresty vibe” at home.

I have stored my seeds in many ways—in jars, in plastic storage containers, in used bubble mailers, in cute “binder” gift books, in Ziploc bags. Keeping seeds organized can be a challenge, especially when you grow an extensive vegetable garden. There’s the question of how to organize and categorize. But did you know that your seed storage conditions can also affect the viability and germination rate of your seeds? In this article, I’m going to share some tips on how to keep seeds and container options for storing them.

Tested by Niki Jabbour, the award-winning author of Growing Under Cover and The Year-Round Vegetable Gardener, who lives and gardens in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

While growing plants from seed is less expensive, it does require extra steps when compared to growing plants or starts from your local garden center.

You know that old saying that “friends don’t let friends grow annuals”? I now ignore that sentiment. Some of the best plants in my garden are annuals, and they are more than worth the effort of growing them every year. Annuals add bold color to my containers and beds, fill in spaces beautifully, and bloom for longer than any coneflower (Echinacea spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9) or phlox (Phlox spp. and cvs., Zones 3–9), so they bridge the flowering gaps between my perennials’ bloom times. But over the last few years as I’ve strolled the ever-more-homogenized aisles of the garden centers in my area, I’ve found myself bored silly, and in sticker shock. I always buy a few standard sweet potato vines (Ipomoeabatatas cvs., annual), calibrachoas (Calibrachoa cvs., annual), and coleus (Plectranthus scutellarioides cvs., Zones 10–11), of course, but if I want something a little different, I grow it from seed.

The biggest epiphany of my horticultural career was learning about plant survival strategies. Like most gardeners, I was accustomed to classifying plants as annuals, biennials, or perennials. But dividing them into groups based on their survival strategies instead got me thinking about how they evolved to grow, which in turn helped me to cultivate them more successfully in my garden in Texas.

Every gardener knows the frustration of having too much seed left over at the end of the growing season. All that wasted potential sitting in half-empty packets, that you have neither the time nor space to use.

There's a new plant feed range on the block, and it's scientifically designed to help your plants perform better than ever before! Empathy Mycorrhizal Fungi Rootgrow is a new selection of organic plant feed that uses science to help your plants thrive. But what is Mycorrhizal Fungi? And what can it do for your plants that your average feed can't? Let's find out.

Common vetch (Vicia sativa) is starting to show up in vegetable fields. Vetch is a cool-season weed that begins germinating in the fall and begins blooming in the winter, peaking in the spring. Vetch is in the legume family, making it capable of fixing nitrogen in the soil. For this reason, vetches are sometimes used as a component of multi-species cover crops. Vetch can be particularly problematic in crops like strawberries as it comes up in the planting holes in the plastic, competing with the young strawberry transplants for water and nutrients. This competition can significantly slow down the development of the strawberries, reducing their yield in the spring.

If you’re a gardener and love the taste of garlic, growing it at home can be a rewarding experience. In this article, we’ll guide you through the different Garlic Growing Stages in detail.

I’m not always the world’s most efficient or organised gardener, but there are certain things that I always try to do. One of these is to sow my saved sweet pea seed in Roottrainers and deep pots in October. They have germinated well and are now in the coldframe where they should develop a good root system over winter, ready for pinching out in the spring to encourage bushy growth. ..

Busy Lizzies continue to amaze me every year with their flower power – those above have been flowering since the beginning of June and show no sign of stopping, despite a large degree of neglect by the gardener; however, a dose of frost would quickly send them packing.

Today we’re visiting with Rachel, a gardener and artist living in Elgin, Illinois (Zone 5b). She moved in 2022 to 1.5 acres and is in the process of designing and planting a fabulous front garden. She’s also diving into forest restoration for the back half-acre—making it beautiful for wildlife and her kiddos.

Here are the Best Seeds for Gardening that Grow Quickly in Just 5 Days! From herbs to vegetables and fruits – we have picked the most quick ones to sprout!

Imagine a steady supply of fresh, aromatic cilantro right in the comfort of your own home, readily available whenever you’re whipping up guacamole, salsa, or a myriad of culinary delights. Think it’s too good to be true? Growing cilantro indoors isn’t just doable; it’s downright easy and incredibly rewarding! Let’s have a look at every detail on How to Grow Cilantro Indoors!

The centerpiece of a traditional American landscape has long been a verdant, weed-free expanse of lawn. But all too often conventional lawn care is achieved by applying an onslaught of synthetic fungicides and fertilizers that are detrimental to soil health. In my mind, an organically maintained lawn uses a mix of turfgrass species and clover and has the added benefit of supporting pollinators and a host of soil-dwelling organisms.

Bonsai is the ancient Japanese art of training and pruning a tree that is growing in a small pot and therefore has constrained growth. Indoor bonsai trees make popular and unusual gifts for house plant growers looking for a challenge. There’s a wide range to choose from, including a selection of beginner species that require far less maintenance. Most indoor bonsai trees are native to tropical and semi-tropical regions so need plenty of light, humidity and consistent temperatures. Temperate trees are best grown outside as they need a period of winter dormancy which is triggered by gradually fading light levels and temperature, which is hard to replicate indoors.

Gluten-free foods are in high demand, and ancient grains are leading the way with buckwheat, teff, quinoa, and amaranth becoming mainstream. But have you heard of fonio? The fonio plant is an African heritage grain and one of the oldest cultivated crops in the world.

Growing plants is an exciting and essential part of gardening, especially from seeds, but it can also be frustrating when they take a long time to sprout. Luckily, there are a few tricks that will help in Germinate Seeds Faster! Let’s have a look!

I have voles in my garden. While many people may see this as a serious disadvantage and a problem to be solved, I like to look at the positive and recognize the role that these creatures perform in garden ecology.

Header image by Oleksandr Pidvalnyi from Pixabay

In this case, it was the egg, as that is what I found myself thinking of when I picked today’s blooms…

Making homemade fertilizer is the best way to ensure that your plants thrive with organic feed. Here are the top Vinegar Fertilizer Recipes that offer vital plant nutrients.

The bay leaves plant is usually sold in pot but if you don’t find one, propagate it from seeds or cutting.

Cress (Lepidium sativum) is an easy and quick crop to grow indoors at any time of year. The seedlings are harvested complete with stems and leaves, to make a delicious addition to sandwiches and salads.

One of the new things I am trying to grow this year is agretti, Salsola soda. It’s a big hit with chefs, but still new on the UK food scene and virtually untried in British gardens.

Mould (mold) spores are everywhere, they’re inescapable, and moulds love growing in the warm, damp and humid conditions that seedlings need to thrive. If you have biodegradable pots then moulds can rapidly colonize those; but they will happily grow on the surface of compost as well. A lot of the moulds we see won’t do much damage to the seedlings, but some of them will and having mould on the windowsill isn’t much good for us either.