Learning How to Grow From Seeds

People often start thinking about learning how to grow from seeds after a season or two of gardening.  Starting plants from seed is a simple way to save considerably on the costs of gardening for your vegetables. You will usually have an initial cost outlay, but once you have purchased the equipment you can use it year after year for only the cost of electricity and your soil mix, which saves loads of money as opposed to buying commercial vegetable starts at $3-4 apiece.

Many places you will see recommend buying their special kits, or buying their special grow lights. That isn’t necessary! Plants grow beautifully under a simple setup of a shelf unit with shop lights. You can buy “daylight” spectrum fluorescent bulbs from any hardware store quite inexpensively. I use a combination of cool white and daylight bulbs myself.  Learning how to grow from seeds is really not that difficult, though there is a bit of a learning curve.

Learning how to grow from seeds yourself is great for many reasons:

• It is inexpensive
• A greater variety of vegetables and plants are available via seed
• You choose the growing conditions
• You can bring in some cash on the side by selling starts
• You can continue to grow and refine strains of your own vegetables year after year
• Grow racks can be used to grow salad greens indoors during the winter

Here is a list of posts in this series:
Building a Grow Rack
Making a DIY Heat Mat for Seedlings
Starting Seeds in Flats
Using Soil Blocks to Start Seeds

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