[ijuswannalive]

I live in Northwest Missouri, Zone 6, I usually buy my garden plants but the last couple years I have decided to grow from seeds for a couple different reasons, the main being the cost of plants and the availability of good plants, the last couple years the area people selling plants are getting worse and worse at trying to pass of crappy plants that die when planted.

Anyway to the point lol, last year I used a "jiffy garden" greenhouse seed starter and it worked ok but the soil pellets seemed to dry out entirely too fast even with the lid on it. So this year I took a different approach, one that would allow more time for the plants to grow indoors if needed without running out of grow room.

I usually grow tomato, bell pepper, and hot pepper for my homemade salsa and sauces, not really into growing onions as they continue to be cheap in my area so I usually buy them but I might try some this year.

This year I used a "sweater box" tote from walmart, it is around 18"X48" with clear bottom and sides and a white lid. This was an experiment to see if it worked as well as the greenhouse boxes you buy at walmart for 8 bucks and are crapppp, they are too thin and flimsy, when I tried to carry them out to plant my stuff last year they kept flexing and breaking which would cause my young tomato and pepper plants to hit the ground, not cool.

I used the disposable paper cups and a few 8oz foam cups to plant in, I also used a recycled cardboard egg carton to start some flower seeds which you will see in the pics below, worked pretty well.

The potting soil I used was just a 5.00 bag of soil from wally world, I filled the cups 3/4 full of moist potting soil after poking drain holes in the bottom of the cups. I then planted the seeds and covered them with a thin layer of soil ( 1/8" to 1/4" per packet recommendations ) I then put the lid on the sweater box and put it in a south facing window where the sun could hit one side of it for the better half of a day. It gets nice n balmy in there, to a point where I actually partially remove the lid on a good warm day to prevent molding.

I have only had to water my seedlings once since setting it up, the tote has proven itself to be a GREAT setup, cheap, strong, and thick enough to not flex when carried. If you need a good setup this is it.

I also had a couple different things already growing, mainly my "Wonder Egg Tree" which is basically a novelty eggplant tree that grows white eggplants around the size of a chicken egg, it was a novelty grow for my 2 year old that calls them "chicken plants" lol. The setup came with 15-20 seeds and I think 18 of them grew lol, I have separated 2 plants from the bigger pot and will be thinning the others out, I dont need 18 of them lol.

As you can see in the pics I have covered the cups in the window with sandwich bags to keep in the moisture for the "greenhouse effect" and it works wonders, cuts down on water use and the plants are springing right up.

The other pics are plants in the tote, most of the pics are pepper and tomato and the ones in the egg carton are "Columbine Flowers" which are going to be my early bloomers in my butterfly garden I make for my wife, she is a huge butterfly fan so we have to get that going as well lol.

 

[ForestBeekeeper]

Nice start, keep going

 

[SilverSurfer]

Sweet.

Good idea with the sweater tote.

 

[kev]

the last couple years the area people selling plants are getting worse and worse at trying to pass of crappy plants that die when planted.

Some types of plants should not be transplanted from sprouts, they should be grown directly from seed.

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/Plantanswers/vegetables/okra.html

Q. I transplanted some okra I purchased at a local nursery. It is stunted and not growing. What should I do?

A. Please, don't waste your garden dollars! Always plant crops such as beans, beets, cantaloupe, carrots, chard, collards, corn, cucumbers, kale, mustard, okra, peas, radishes, squash, turnips and watermelons from seed. These plants are difficult to transplant and transplanting offers no advantage over seeding directly in the garden.

Aggie-horticulture is a division of the Texas A&M University.

Personally, the only types of plants that I transplant are tomatoes and peppers (I have not grown any strawberries yet so they were not included in the list). Just about every thing else is grown from seed.

Some types of plants are likely to go into shock and die, or their growth will be stunted when you transplant them. I have seen this first hand with squash.

 

[ijuswannalive]

I mainly grow start tomato and pepper plants inside, the plants I have bought in the last couple years that were bad when planted were tomato and peppers, never tried to grow okra because I dont like it ewwwwwwwwww lol I will keep that in mind though.

I have seen the dirt in the totes getting a lil fungusy in the last day or so which is leading me to believe it is too moist in there so I am taking the lid off during the day a few hours so it will dry them out a bit, if that doesnt work then I will put a heat mat under them with the lid off which works well also.