Early Plants for the Paying Garden 



F. F. ROCKWELL 



STARTING SEEDS EARLY FOR BEST RESULTS— MAKING THE BEST OF CONDITIONS 



EARLINESS is particularly desirable 

 this year. Success with the first 

 plantings of many vegetables and 

 flowers depends upon getting them 

 so well along toward full development before 

 hot, dry weather and the annual visitations of 

 insect pests and diseases recur that they will 

 escape injury from these sources of failure. 



Of course experience counts, but on the 

 whole starting plants is much less complicated 

 and easier than planting and caring for a 

 garden. 



A sunny window in a room that is fairly 

 warm (40 degrees or 

 so on cold nights), 

 and room to make an 

 improvised frame in a 

 sheltered spot out- 

 doors later in the 

 spring, may be put 

 down as the minimum 

 requirements in the 

 way of equipment. 

 The number of plants 

 required for the aver- 

 age home garden is 

 not great. Fifty cab- 

 bage, 50 cauliflower, 

 100 lettuce, 200 beets, 

 50 tomatoes, 25 pep- 

 pers, 25 eggs, and 100 

 early celery, would 

 be a pretty gener- 

 ous allowance for the 

 general run of garden 



plots. All of these plants could easily 

 be started in two or three flats, in the house; 

 and grown and hardened off" later in a space 

 equivalent to about two standard coldframe 

 sash, or six by six feet. 



In general, there are four ways of starting 

 plants: (1) In the house; (2) In a hotbed; 

 (3) In a greenhouse; (4) In a coldframe. 

 Not practical to attempt to start plants 

 in the house? True, many people try it 

 each year, and fail. I still remember my own 

 first attempt at starting plants. I had seen 

 how the work was done in the neighboring 

 greenhouse where, up to that time, I had 

 bought all my plants. I thawed out some 

 good garden soil, filled two small boxes, 

 sowed my seeds, set them in a warm place in 

 the sun, and watered assiduously. Result — 

 after three weeks of anxious waiting and 

 watering — three little plants forced their way 



up, 



looked around, and crawled back in 

 again! Investigation showed soil soggy at 

 the bottom, dry on top, and with a "crust" 

 that came up in flakes two inches square and 

 a quarter of an inch thick! And there ended 

 my first little journey into the realm of 

 plant growing. 



The fact is that the air in the ordinary 

 dwelling house room is so dry that it has a 

 tendency, especially in connection with 

 bright sunlight, to "bake" any soil. But it 

 can be overcome. The first precaution is 

 to take exceptional care in the preparation of 



Coarse drainage material in the flat bottom prevents the 

 soil from getting soggy 



Watering the transplants by light spraying firms the soil 

 and starts them growing again 



The soil is firmed by pressure and seed sown in shallow 

 drills. One flat will supply a small garden 



soil and drainage. The second is to prevent 

 evaporation from the seed box. The third 

 is to avoid watering the surface of the seed 

 box. And the fourth is to increase, as far 

 as possible, the moisture in the air. 



Evaporation from the soil in the seed box 

 may be reduced to a minimum by covering 

 it with a pane of glass. Putting a glass 

 cover on your seed flats has the same effect — 

 condensation of the escaping moisture on 

 the glass keeps the air above the soil saturated 

 with moisture. If no glass is available a 

 double sheet of newspaper, laid over the box 

 and kept moist, will answer; but as this must 

 be removed immediately the seeds begin to 

 sprout, it is much better to get the glass. The 

 latter should not fit quite tight. 



Watering the surface of the seed flat may 

 be avoided either by submersing the bottom 

 of the flat in a half inch or so of water, so 

 that it will be soaked up from below, until 

 the moisture appears on the surface; or by 

 using an old funnel which is inserted to 

 the bottom of the flat, at three or four 

 different points, so that the water is ap- 

 plied to the bottom of the soil, instead of on 

 the surface. 



Air moisture. The kitchen is the one room 

 in the house where the air remains near 

 normal. It usually gets more fresh air from 

 the outside than any other room, and the 

 constant evaporation of steam and water 

 replace the moisture removed by artificial 

 heating. A sunny kitchen window is the best 

 place in the house to start plants. 



Starting plants in a hotbed while simpler 

 is perhaps less comfortable than starting 

 them indoors. As the days get longer the 

 ventilation has to be watched closely. The 

 use of double-glazed sash instead of the 

 ordinary single ones will be found advan- 

 tageous making it possible to get the benefit 

 of the sun heat even in very cold weather. 



Sow seeds in the hotbed either directly 



in the soil, or in flats. The former method 

 has the advantage of being less work, and of 

 saving some space; but the latter is generally 

 more satisfactory, as each lot of plants may 

 be handled separately. And as soon as the 

 plants are large enough they can be removed 

 to a cool frame to finish growth, leaving the 

 hotbed available for the starting of other 

 things. (The construction of hotbeds and 

 coldframes, and the various ways of heating 

 the former — by manure, warm-air from the 

 cellar, hot-water, pipes, etc., have been 

 discussed in detail in earlier numbers of The 

 Garden Magazine.) 

 When the hotbed 

 is heated with man- 

 ure, sowing must not 

 be done before the 

 manure has reached 

 its maximum heat. 

 After the bed is pre- 

 pared, leave it closed 

 for a few days, until 

 the thermometer — 

 which should always 

 be hung inside a 

 frame — has reached 

 the highest point, 

 and gone back to 

 around eighty de- 

 grees. 



Starting plants in a 

 greenhouse is of course 

 working under the 

 best of conditions. 

 One is independent of the weather, has a com- 

 fortable place to work and all conditions pretty 

 much under control. Abundant light, while 

 absolutely necessary for the smallest growing 

 plants, is not required until after they are 

 actually up. Germination can be hastened 

 materially by placing the flats on the heating 

 pipes, under the benches; or by preparing a 

 section of a bench directly over the pipes with 

 only a couple of inches of soil in it, and closing 

 in the pipes below. with old bagging. In a 

 cool greenhouse, a little frame may be con- 

 structed over a section of a bench, with a 

 space, at the back for the :heat> from the 

 pipes to enter it. The temperature in this 

 may be kept five to ten degrees higher than 

 iri the house. 1 



Before being ready to set out in the garden, 

 all plants must be put through a final process 

 of "hardening off." 



Just as soon as the seedlings are big enough to catch hold 

 of it is time to transplant into a new flat 



15 



