No greenhouse, no problem
Before I had a business growing cut flowers, I was an avid home gardener. Each spring I bought lots of plants from greenhouses and was gifted perennials from generous friends and family. Some of my favorite garden plants were irises and peonies dug up from my Grandma’s garden in North Battleford and planted in the flower beds of my first house. Over the years I became more interested in growing food and flowers and I found myself frustrated with the selection at greenhouses and big box stores. I decided I had to teach myself how to start plants from seed. Then I could have those pink cherry tomatoes, the Mexican herbs and special delphiniums I hankered after. This was the start of my obsession with tiny green seedlings. It’s now my favorite part of of my business, watching seeds grow from sprout to flower. Each year I start enough plants to fill my half acre field with flowers, about 13 000 seedlings. Do I have a greenhouse? A big house with a solarium attached? Not even close. Everything is started in my basement with a very low tech set up. I’m sharing my set up today because I think seed starting is an important skill for everyone to have and besides that, it’s fun! Here’s the crazy part: you don’t need any fancy equipment or much space at all. I’ll talk about tips for successful seed starting in my next blog, but here are the keys to how I start so many little plants in my house.
Tiny Feverfew seedlings emerging
Soil Blocks This is an ancient Indigenous Aztec method of starting plants that was popularized in North America by Eliot Coleman in his book, The New Organic Grower. This is where I first heard about the technique. There are so many benefits to using this way of starting plants but for me the key benefit is space savings. I start the majority of my seedlings in March and April, 6-8 weeks before our local last frost date. By using a 3/4 inch soil blocking tool, I can fit up to 1200 seedlings on one shelf in my basement. I have 6 wooden plant racks, for a total of 22 shelves. If I grew everything in mini blocks, which I don’t, I could potentially have over 26 000 seedlings growing. Yowza! If you want to do a deep dive on soil blocking, we did an episode all about the subject on my podcast, The Sustainable Flowers Podcast. You can listen here .
Shelving My plant racks are just basic wooden structures, built by my husband Scott, with each shelf holding four standard 1020 trays ( the rectangular ones you see at garden centres, they measure about 11”x 21”). We maximize space by building them taller rather than wider. I keep a little foot stool handy to be able to check the top shelves. If you don’t want to build racks, most big box stores have wire racks with shelving that would hold about 12 trays, enough to start 3600 plants in mini blocks.
Lighting I have grown plants without supplemental lighting, using only the sunniest window in my house. I get the best results with artificial lights though since seedlings need between 12 and 14 hours of light each day to grow optimally. As I write this, in mid March, my latitude is only getting 11.5 hours of sun each day. Add in cloudy days and you can see how plants can struggle without some help. Without adequate, strong light seedlings grow weak, leggy stems that are easily damaged when they are transplanted outside. Then all the work you’ve gone to in starting your seedlings is for naught. We have ballasts and LED light tubes from our local hardware store that are set on a timer to provide my little green babies with the direct light they need to grow strong stems. You do not need special grow lights for your plants. Any light will work but we use LEDs because they use much less energy than conventional lights. These are hung with hooks and chains from the wooden shelves so they can be adjusted to maintain a distance of 2” above the plants as they grow.
Oscillating fan This is a crucial part of my seed starting because it mimics wind. It runs on a timer just like my lights so my seedlings get good airflow. It lessens transplant shock as well. If your plants have been exposed to a fan blowing on them for weeks, they are better equipped to deal with the strong breezes of spring.
Seeding table The last part of my setup is just a small folding table where I sit and make my soil blocks and sow seeds.
All of this takes up roughly 100 sq feet in my basement, but a single rack holding up to 1200 plants only takes up 8 sq feet. Imagine the plants you could grow with just that small space. Sound doable? I hope so!
Next time I’ll share more about my seed starting and what tips I’ve learned over the last 10 years of indoor growing.
A Ladbrooke mini blocker makes 20 soil blocks at a time