Seed Starting for the Fall Season

Where do most plants come from?  Well, SEEDS, of course!  So now is the time to start your cool season garden from seed.  For this topic called “Seed Starting for the Fall Season”, UC Master Gardener Dece Morgan talks to fellow Master Gardener Teena Spindler about the most inexpensive way to start a bountiful vegetable garden.  Some seeds don’t take much to germinate but others may take a little coaxing.  The key is consistent water (soil moisture). Start now to prepare for California’s second growing season coming up!. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I'm DC Morgan along with Master Gardener Tina Spindler, your KUCI host for the hour. This week's topic is seed starting for the fall season. So, Tina, how's your garden doing so far this summer?

SPEAKER_01 0:16

It's been doing great. It was probably one of its prettiest years ever from a flowering standpoint, I think, because we didn't have those super really hot days. We kind of had a steadily moderate, you know, May, May and June. So I'm sure that'll change any day now.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

Let's see, are you ready to start getting the garden ready for fall, though?

SPEAKER_01 0:39

Yes, absolutely. And I know it's a little counterintuitive to start thinking about it during the summer because in the fall is when we plant cool season stuff when the weather starts to get cooler. But if we're gonna do one of my favorite things, which is to start seeds, you have to think ahead. And we typically start seeds for the cool season in August. Kind of weird.

SPEAKER_00 1:03

Yeah, it it does seem a little counterintuitive, but so but why start plants from seed versus going to the nursery and getting those little pots?

SPEAKER_01 1:12

Well, it is great to go to the nursery and get those little pots, assuming that the nursery has the varieties that you're looking for. So I'm kind of a big fan of tall flowers, and uh most of the nurseries don't carry tall varieties because they don't bloom until they reach a certain height. And the nurseries, of course, uh want to sell folks, you know, pretty stuff, and people want to buy, you know, pretty things, and so they're not the customers typically aren't very interested in things that are just green, right? With especially if they're not familiar with whatever that plant is. Right. So uh for instance for the fall, I love tall snapdragons, and most of the snapdragons that you can find in the nurseries are you know the little short ones that look great in pots. But if you have a garden, uh you might want to have some tall things in in the towards the rear of some of your flowers. Definitely, yeah. And then the other reason for veggies in particular is the varieties. So in uh the fall, you want to plant cool season. In the fall, we like to think about anything with leaves, anything with roots, and then a few other things like peas that are cool season crops, and anything that's in the coal family, the coal crops like broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower. And wouldn't it be amazing if you have kids in particular who hate vegetables in general? Wouldn't it be awesome to plant an orange cauliflower or a purple cauliflower? Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

So those are fairly new, aren't they, on the market?

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Uh you know, I don't know how new they are, but it's it's just I think super fun to be able to choose something that's a little different. Or if you have like most of us in Orange County, uh we don't live out in the country, we live in suburbia, and we have small yards, I garden and raised beds. And so we may want to choose a particular kind of pea that's only going to be, say, two feet high, rather than the ones that are vining that get, you know, six feet plus. We might want a bush pea, or if we're growing in pots, you know, we might want a bush pea because we can't put a long trellis, you know, in a pot. So those are my reasons. Um, it's the variety, it's getting things that you can't get elsewhere, and then finally, I just think it's super rewarding. I feel very accomplished when I get a seed to germinate.

SPEAKER_00 3:53

Yeah. And it's probably fun to pick out of that catalog if you buy in catalog. Absolutely. Shopping in the case.

SPEAKER_01 4:00

Absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:03

So um what is a seed anyway?

SPEAKER_01 4:07

Well, a seed is actually the reproductive part of a plant. So it holds the key to a future plant. Uh, it actually is a plant. Um, I love doing this uh little exercise when we have workshops with kids. If you take a big seed like a bean and you soak it in water, it will get nice and soft and it'll actually break apart in half. When you break apart, break it apart in half, what you'll see curled up inside is a miniature leaf, a miniature stem, and a miniature root.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

Yeah, so it is just uh basically an embryonic plant. So just like humans start as embryos, so do plants. And the embryo for the plant is actually a seed. What you see when you see a seed, and again think about a bean because those are kind of easy for all of us to picture because they're bigger to look at, you'll notice that there's a kind of a hard shell, and that's called the seed coat. And then the the part of the bean seed that makes it you know kind of fat and chunky, that's actually stored food. So just like we eat that bean or that kernel of corn, which is also a seed, and that's food for us, it's food for the plant if we're to plant it. So when we plant that bean seed, that miniature leaf and stem and root will start to push its way out of the seed, but it will use that fatty part, the starchy part of the uh seed for its initial bit of food. So if you've ever done the you know science experiment thing where you put seeds in between wet paper towels, ever done that? Uh-huh. Yeah, and then you actually watch them sprout. There's no soil. They're they're growing and getting their nutrients from that little uh starchy content that's inside the seed. Kind of cool.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Very cool, totally self-contained.

SPEAKER_01 6:12

Totally self-contained, but of course, you know, that's only its first meal, that little bit of starch that's in the seed. So if if it doesn't get future nutrients and moisture from outside, of course it will wither and die. But but yeah, seeds are just so totally amazing because they're a tiny bit self-sufficient at first.

SPEAKER_00 6:35

Yeah, so um what does a seed need to germinate?

SPEAKER_01 6:41

It m it needs the right temperature, it needs moisture, and it does need air. Um it seeds seeds do breathe like we do, so uh most seeds will not, if you keep them submerged in water, you know, will will not germinate. They they do want moisture, but they don't want to be drowny. Yeah for the most part. Um and so what we can actually discover in terms of you know the temperature is is there are actually charts that will tell you what type of temperature each type of seed needs. But for our purposes, most uh common vegetables and flowers that grow in in our gardens germinate uh in a relatively you know uh narrow range of temperatures. But that's one of the reasons we talk about cool season plants and warm season plants. Cool season, as the name implies, like cooler weather and the seeds will germinate in cooler weather. Now, you know, does that mean 30 degrees? No. But will lettuce germinate um in you know high 50s, low 60s? You know, yes, probably. Does it germinate faster if you start it inside in a 70-degree environment? Yeah, it does. And then things that are warm season plants, of course, are not going to want to germinate at those cool temperatures. They're definitely gonna wait until they have you know 70 degree, maybe even 80 degree weather to germinate.

SPEAKER_00 8:25

And the longer sunshine days. Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 8:28

Or the shorter for the cooler season. Yeah. So the the main thing though that I do want to emphasize about germination is the key to getting seeds to germinate is to have consistent moisture when you plant it until it germinates. And that leads us to the next question: how long does it take a seed to germinate?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

We can't wait. Keep looking out the window every morning. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:00

And there's no uh right answer uh to that because it depends on the kind of seed. And it also depends on those other factors that we were talking about, like uh temperature and uh moisture. But in general, uh your seeds for uh most flowers and vegetables will germinate within seven to fourteen days. 14 days is is the longer end, and then some of them, like radishes, will germinate in three to five days. So uh it it depends, as I said, on the seed and the conditions.

SPEAKER_00 9:37

That's not really that bad. Even I could wait a week.

SPEAKER_01 9:39

Yeah. But the key is is when you look at your seed packet and it tells you for that particular seed, like I'm holding a sweet baby romaine, which is a great cool season lettuce to use for containers because it's a romaine that stays pretty small. And this is why I'm growing this one from seed this year, is because I want to do some containers with lettuce. And um, so to have, you know, I don't know if you've ever seen the romaine lettuce when it's growing in the field, but they are monsters, they're just really big. Um, the you know, those those plants, by the time it's it's pared down and we get that head of romaine, it may be, you know, 11 inches or so. But out in the field, it probably had a diameter of you know 14 inches and they pulled off all the outer leaves that are too tough to eat. So that's why I've chosen this sweet baby romaine lettuce, is the heads stay nice nice and small and they don't take up as much room. Uh but this seed packet is telling me that it takes seven to fourteen days to germinate. So now generally with lettuce it it seems to always germinate within within a week. I I have not really experienced it taking two weeks, but if you were planting it directly outside in the ground rather than starting seeds indoors, it could take 14 days just because think of the conditions outside. They may not be as steady, obviously, as inside. And that's why, especially if you're gonna plant seeds directly in the ground, which we call direct sowing, um, you really need to pay attention to that moisture because outside, of course, things could dry out, you know, really quickly.

SPEAKER_00 11:28

Right. Yeah, I have one spot, a southwest facing area that I put some potted seeds in, and oh, every I had to water them twice a day. Exactly. It was so hot back there.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

And if you've ever tried to plant seeds when the Santa Annas are blowing outside, you know, as you said, you have to water several times a day or or they won't have an opportunity to germinate. We had a um uh children's uh school garden that I volunteer at in Tusnan, and of course, school starts in September, and so they plant their first round of crops in October. Well, what happens in October? Santa Annas, yes, every single year we get sanas, and so we had a terrible uh germination rate because you know the kids are only there, you know, Monday through, and the teachers are only there Monday through Friday. And even if they were diligent about watering during the school days, if the sananas are blown over the weekend and dry out the soil, then then that's a problem. So what we did the following year is we got parent volunteers to be like seed patrol monitors, right? And they promised that they would come every day. We usually we did it in pairs and they would rotate, you know, every other day coming out and watering even on the weekend.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Oh yeah. You want them to survive after all that work.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah, and we don't want those, you know, kids at the school to come out and say, nothing happened. But it was a teaching experience because we ought to teach the lesson, you know, if seeds dry out even for one day, they're not gonna germinate. So that's the only tricky thing about starting from seeds is just keeping those seeds moisture.

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Now, do you you do you use seed catalogs or I do.

SPEAKER_01 13:21

I um I love seed catalogs. Um my husband would say it's an addiction, um, but I keep telling him it's a really cheap addiction, and so he shouldn't be sad. There are um, of course, uh these days if if we want to save paper, we can do all of this online on the internet. Um, but because I've been ordering seeds from catalogs for years, I still get paper catalogs in the mail, and I have to say I really enjoy them. It's just fun to sit, you know, on the sofa while you have a program on TV in the evening and just flip through the pages. And um, of course, you can do the same thing on the on the internet as well, but um, I don't know. I just find the the catalogs more user-friendly for me, but maybe that's because I'm old. I don't know. Uh-oh. Um, but I'll I'll just mention a couple of of ones that that are you know fairly well known. Um, of course, there's there's park seed, uh, then there's one that I like uh called Pine Tree, and and none of these are endorsements per se, but just to give folks um some names. You can also just Google seed catalogs and and find some that way. Uh territorial seed, uh John Sheepers has a kitchen garden seed catalog, there's select seeds, and um then there's even a a tomato growers seed catalog. So if you're of course that isn't appropriate for the time of year that we're talking about, but it just goes to show you that uh some of these seed growers can get pretty pretty specialized. And then if you're into um kind of heirloom varieties, there's um a company called Baker Creek that sells heirloom catalogs, I mean heirloom seeds, and they have they have an amazing catalog. It's gosh, it's the biggest, thickest seed catalog ever, and it has uh wonderful photos. Uh the cool thing about these seed catalogs is um that they give you so much information. And so if you are looking to have uh, say, a unique experience with peas, uh, and you aren't sure what kind of pea you want, uh you can start reading the descriptions of the peas and it will tell you uh all of the stuff that you need to know about these different different seeds. And then the other thing you should look for when you're looking through catalogs or when you're in uh a nursery or a big box retailer is that if the seed pack says AAS on it, that's for all America selection, that means that it's been tested by a nonprofit called All American Selections, and they have test gardens all over the United States, and when there are new varieties introduced, they test them in their test gardens and choose the ones that have the best performance to get their designation as an AAS winner. So if you see one that says it's an AAS winner, then odds are it has a pretty good reputation of being a good performer.

SPEAKER_00 16:49

Great. I'm gonna write that down.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Yeah. But like I said, I I do love uh to look through the seed catalogs, and you know, in the olden days we would fill out the order form and mail it in. But now after I look in the seed catalog, I go online and I order. Order online. Best of both worlds. Yeah, exactly. Um, so yeah, seed catalogs are awesome, but I also um if I'm in a hurry, uh, for instance, you know, this summer I had um some critters in my vegetable garden that wiped out my row of cucumbers, which was very sad. My my row of pickling cucumbers. Um and so I had to replant. And as luck would have it, the store that I went to, um, big box hardware store, actually had a great seed display, and they actually had pickling cucumber seed packs, uh, which you know isn't the most common thing, but I like pickling cucumbers because it's only my husband and I, so we don't need a great big long cucumber. We just, you know, one one short cucumber works fine for us, and you don't have to make pickles out of them, you can eat them. Um, so that was that was a great experience was just going to the you know the local store the day that I wanted to replant and getting them. Um, but again, we're talking about cool season crops, so forget I said cucumbers because that's a summer hot season crop. So we're not gonna plant those now.

SPEAKER_00 18:24

So, what kind of information should we look for on the seed packet?

SPEAKER_01 18:28

There's all kinds of information on the seed packet. Um, basically, uh, once you follow our little tips, because we'll go through the process of planting the seeds in a moment. Um, but other than that, once we go through that short little process, everything you need to know about your plants that you're growing is on the back of your seed packet. So again, I'm just looking at this one that's for this sweet baby romaine, and it tells you when to plant it. So if you live in a cold winter area, it says wait until April to June to plant it. If you live in a mild winter area, it says you can plant it February through September. And then it tells you whether or not you need sun or shade. So for lettuce is one of the few vegetables that can take part sun. It'll grow in full sun, but lettuce can actually take part sun for those folks who you know live in townhouses or condos or apartments and they really don't have much sun. Lettuce is a great thing for you to grow. Yeah. Yeah. Um, the other thing this tells you is that you want to sow these seeds a quarter inch deep. That's another thing that's really important for seeds. Different seeds want to be sown at different depths. So for lettuce, this particular lettuce, actually most lettuce, I think, a quarter inch deep and one inch apart. Now, the next thing it's going to tell you though is how to thin those plants. So even though you're sewing them one inch apart, you're not going to let those plants grow to full maturity being only one inch apart, right?

SPEAKER_00 20:10

Right. I'm pretty crowded.

SPEAKER_01 20:13

Yeah. Imagine those heads of lettuce, you know, clunking together. So what it will tell you is that eventually with this head of lettuce, you're going to want to thin them to 12 inches apart or 10 inches apart. Um, for this one, it's a, like I said, a small head, so you can grow them closer together.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

Right. And then they have more access to the nutrients and things too, right? If they're a little bit further apart.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

Exactly. They won't be fighting for sunlight, water, and nutrients. They'll they'll be um appropriately spaced so that they can all survive well. And also having them appropriately spaced helps them have more resistance to insects. Because you can imagine if things are crowded, what happens?

SPEAKER_00 20:54

Yeah, the plant gets stressed and then the insects come along and have a nice meal.

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Exactly. Um, so the cool thing about lettuce though is when you thin it and you pull those baby plants out, just tear off the roots, and now you have baby lettuce. Oh.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

So you have gourmet baby lettuce.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

Whenever you have plant lettuce from seed, all of those thinnings just collect them, cut the little roots off, and now you have this wonderful tender baby lettuce that you can eat.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

Nothing wasted, great.

SPEAKER_01 21:24

Nothing wasted, not with lettuce, no. Um, and then the the last thing that uh, well, a couple of things that that it will have on the seed packet. Um, again, it tells us how long for this seed to germinate, seven to fourteen days. And then how long is it going to be till you can harvest? I mean, that's important, right? Right. You want to know that. And this one says 50 to 67 days, so little, you know, six weeks, two months, something like that. Except that you get to harvest, that's at maturity. So if you wanted a head of romaine, you would need to wait. That long. But as I said, you know, you harvest it at those uh smaller stages, and then you've got baby gourmet lettuces that you've got.

SPEAKER_00 22:07

Ooh, that sounds yummy. Bring me a salad.

SPEAKER_01 22:10

Yeah, exactly. I always always plant too much, too much.

SPEAKER_00 22:15

I do have a funny story about planting seeds. My sister-in-law, not really into gardening, but she had some pots on her porch and she got some seeds and put it, I think they were geraniums or something. And I go, Well, yeah, she said I planted them 14 inches deep. I said, What? Let me see the packet. I've never heard of that. It was one fourth inch, but she didn't have her glasses on. But they came up and they looked good. I could not believe it. I wonder if she dropped some though. You know what I mean? Yeah. I I could not believe it.

SPEAKER_01 22:54

That's pretty funny. And then and then uh it depends on the seed packet. The information I just gave is usually on every seed packet, uh, but this particular brand actually has a plethora of information. Um, and so I I really enjoy this uh Renee's garden um seed packets because they always give you a whole story about the particular flower or vegetable. And so this one says the pretty green leaves grow in perfect six to eight inch tall vase-shaped heads that are heavy for their size with a wonderful sweet flavor and crisp, crunchy texture. And then it also says that this is a long-lasting, slow to bolt lettuce. And that's really important for where we live because we're gonna get those stupid 80-degree days in December and January. Yeah, and every month we get a week. And our lettuce is gonna want to bolt, which means it wants to send up flowers because with that warm weather, it's thinking that the season is coming to an end and it needs to produce seeds for the next year's crop. So in our climate, we particularly like slow to bolt lettuce because it it la I know last year we got a heat spell in December, I think, and all of my lettuce bolted, and I had to start all over again. Which is fine, but annoying.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

Good to know. Yeah, very annoying.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

But that's another reason that um it's awesome to read these seed packets, or if you're ordering from a catalog, you'll have these kinds of descriptions in a catalog, and it will just give you so much information and help you make your decision about which variety that you want to get. And then also this particular seed packet uh tells you how to start the seeds outdoors by you know preparing the soil, uh, sowing a quarter inch deep, and then thinning the seedlings when they're a few inches tall. And uh this one tells you that you can plan on seven to ten full heads in an eight-inch pot. So there's some good information, right?

SPEAKER_00 25:09

Really good, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 25:10

So it's and in a pot, it says you only uh need to space them five inches apart because these are small, small little heads. But I mean, look at all that information just on this one seed packet. It's I feel like an expert now.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Yeah, you sound like one. You are one.

SPEAKER_01 25:29

Then it gives you another hint on this one uh in particular. It says uh and this is for um cold winters, right? So in the cold winter areas you would plant this in like, you know, March, April, May, but then it says plant again in late summer for a fall harvest. So that's great information for folks that live back east. They can plant again in late summer, get a whole new crop before they get freezing temperatures. Yeah. However, here in good old Southern California, uh, we plant our cool season crops in October. And you just kind of have to watch the weather. Some years I'll plant, you know, in mid-October. Some years if we're having a heat wave in mid-October, then I just wait till the end of October because it just is more challenging if you're trying to plant seeds outdoors in the middle of a heat wave. So instead, what's more reliable for me is to start these seeds in August indoors.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

Ah, that's your secret.

SPEAKER_01 26:36

That's what I like to do with the cool season seeds. You just had an experience, we were talking before the show, about starting some seeds for our Master Gardener children's demonstration garden. Yes. So so what was the process you guys went through? Because I know you were starting your seeds in some containers. What was the process that you you guys went through?

SPEAKER_00 26:59

Well, we um have a mixture of this soil called black magic, which I apparently you have to get it online now. Uh, some just play sand, it's sterilized sand, and then some perlite. That's that white stuff you see in the pots from the nursery that it helps give air to the soil. So um we mix that up together, and then we have little um pots. Yeah, little uh just dis they they can disintegrate in the soil pots. Oh, the peat pots. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

And peat is spelled P-E-A-T, peat pots is is the the name of them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

And then some we just did in these little plastic cups, and then we put them in the hoop house, which is covered with a light netting to diffuse the sun, and they have sprinklers in there, and we'll leave them in there for you know, four or six weeks, and then we'll plant them out in the garden. We have a youth demonstration garden where elementary and on up come and take tours and have fun and see how things grow.

SPEAKER_01 28:02

Well, I'd like to take our folks through the process that you just described that you did in the demo garden in a little bit of detail. First of all, it's super easy, it's really fun, and it's really rewarding. So the things that you need to do to get ready to plant your seeds is first of all assemble a couple of things. So, as DC said, they used a couple of different containers to start their seeds in. One kind that you can use are these peat pots. They're basically pots that are made out of compressed peat, which is completely dissolvable when you plant the plant in the ground. You actually plant the entire pot in the ground. And so that's a really nice way to have not very much disturbance of those brand new seedlings. But there's a couple of other ways that you can, or containers that you can use. You can use simple things like egg cartons. One of my favorite things to use is the containers that you get strawberries in, those plastic containers. They actually have a lid, and so they make a nice greenhouse. So I fill put a couple inches of soil in there and uh leave a couple inches space between where the soil is and the top part. Um and you close that lid after you put the seeds in there, and the reason that you do that is that it keeps the moisture in. And so remember when I was saying the most critical thing is to keep those seeds moist?

SPEAKER_00 29:39

Yes, yes. It helps prevent uh evaporation.

SPEAKER_01 29:43

Exactly. So um so that's a real inexpensive way to have containers, is just use things that you have in your home. But one of the things you always have to make sure that you have is a drainage hole. You must have drainage holes in whatever container you're using. And so even when I'm using those cardboard kind of egg uh cartons, I'll still take a pencil and poke a hole in the bottom of each one of those little sections. The egg cartons are okay, but because they don't hold a whole lot of soil, just note that you'll probably have to water those more frequently because there's not much soil, so the soil is going to grow or dry out very quickly. Note that when you use the strawberry containers, there are no separate sections, right? Any seeds that you plant in that strawberry container, they're all growing in that one container. So when you go to plant them out, you're gonna have to take a table knife and kind of slice the soil in between the plants and then lift them out one plant at a time. So that's some advantages and disadvantages to using those found materials. They're cheap, you don't have to buy anything, but um, you'll have to remember, you know, how you're gonna need to transplant those plants and water them. If you want to have a more uh, let's say uh successful or programmed system, you can invest in the money. And I do this because they actually last for several years if you wash them out. You can invest in little seed starting kits, and they typically come with a bottom tray, inserts that go in that are like the things that we get at the nursery, right? The little cell packs. Right. And they, in addition to that, have a clear plastic lid. And so, again, the advantage to those is that they keep the moisture in and facilitate the germination. That little plastic lid, though, does not stay on your seedlings after they germinate. And this is another problem that beginning gardeners have is if you leave that on after they germinate, now that moist environment becomes a problem for that plant. They like the soil moist until they germinate, but then they want fresh air circulating once they have come out of the ground.

SPEAKER_00 32:21

Because they can what get mold or fungus? They'll do.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

All of the above. Okay. Um and then the other thing that can happen, which is a term that folks might see if they're doing a little research on the internet, is there's a fungal disease called damping off, and that's one of the things that happens with seedlings that are not in an area where they're getting good air circulation. And what that looks like is about a quarter inch up from the soil, the stem of that plant will just suddenly turn brown and shrivel, and your plant will tip over, and of course, then that stem is not conducting water and nutrients to the plant anymore, and so the whole thing dies. So, anyway, that's called damping off, and and you don't want that to happen. So, as soon as your plants germinate, you want to take that clear lid off. So, now we've talked about containers. Next, let's talk about uh soil. You mentioned what mixture the Master Gardeners were using. Um I think perhaps the simplest thing for folks to do is to just buy a bag. It's called Seed Starting Mix. It's basically up a potting mix, but it is a finer potting mix. Um, probably has the same components as what you guys were putting together. It looks to me like it has a little pearlite, a little sand, and then uh maybe a little bit of peat in there, peat moss. Yes. Um, but you can buy a bag that's called Seed Starting Mix, which is what I do.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Well, and I used it once and it did seem like the seeds came up really fast. They did. No effort.

SPEAKER_01 34:06

No effort. Um, you can also use just regular potting mix. So you go, you know, to any nursery or or big box retail or hardware store, and just if you can't find seed starting mix, just buy something that says potting mix. That's fine too. The difference is as you'll notice in a potting mix that there'll be some bigger chunks, you know, maybe a little piece of bark or something like that. Okay. In a seed starting mix, those chunks don't exist, and so that's why the seeds have a super easy time poking their little heads through the soil. So you got your container, you got your seed starting mix, and you got your seeds, so now you're ready to actually plant. So, what do you do? Well, you get a bucket and you take your seed starting mix or your potting mix and you dump as much as you think you're gonna use into a bucket, and sometimes it's not kind of dried out. That's why we're dumping it into the bucket. Because if it's a little dried out, we need to add water and we need to mix it with our hands. So you can put your gloves on if you don't like to get all that up in your fingernails, and you just put a little water in and you want to mix it up. You want it to be damp but not soggy. And again, all this is all about that moisture. Those seeds, as I tell you know, kids when I do a kids' workshop, they're not gonna wake up unless they have the right amount of moisture. So when they're in the seed state, they're dormant or asleep. And what we want to do is get them to wake up. And if you just put that dry soil in your container and lay seeds on stock on top and then water it, odds are, have you ever have you ever tried to water like a really dry houseplant? Yeah, it's it doesn't work, it just the the water kind of rolls off to the side. Yeah, yeah. So we're we're trying to prevent that. So that's why we're using a bucket and mix mixing that soil up until it's nice and moist. And then we use that moist soil to put in our container, whether it's an egg carton or one that we bought that has the little individual cells. And we're gonna pat that soil down just a little. We're not gonna. This is all also the challenge when you're working with kids, right? Because they're gonna go in there and go smush, smush, smush. Yeah. And then you're gonna have a brick of soil. Yeah. And your poor little seed isn't gonna be able to send any roots down. So just gently tap the soil down so that it is uh either even with the top of the container that you're using, like an egg carton or these cells, but or a quarter inch or so under the top of that container. And the way you know how much to fill them is by looking at that seed packet again. So if I was planting these lettuce seeds again where it says that they need to be a quarter inch deep, then I wouldn't fill my container to the top or close to the top. I would make sure I had that quarter inch space. Then I would place my seeds in each of those cells or each of the little egg holder sections. Or if I was using that strawberry plastic container, I would space the seeds, you know, a probably half an inch or so, an inch apart, in a in a little row, maybe two little rows, and then I would cover them with more of that moistened potting mix, uh, a quarter inch worth. Now, alternatively, what you can do, and this is sometimes a little easier with children, is you can fill it to the top of the container and let them pat it down, and then you, as the adult who knows how deep a quarter inch is, don't let kids do this, because they'll poke their fingers all the way to the bottom. So you as the adult can then go back and in each cell where you want to seed, you can poke your finger down a quarter inch and then let the child put a couple of seeds in each cell. Now, I typically don't put uh only one seed in each cell. A, it's super hard, especially with small seeds like lettuce, to only grab one seed.

SPEAKER_00 38:29

Yeah, pretty hard difficult.

SPEAKER_01 38:31

Yeah. Um, and so it's fine to let a couple of seeds fall into each of those cells because what'll happen when they germinate is you can take little nail scissors and you can cut off one of them so that you only end up with one plant in each cell. You can try pulling them out, but um sometimes the roots will get entwined, and when you try to pull one out, several will come out, and then you might you know kill everything that was in that cell. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 39:01

All your hard work. All your hard work.

SPEAKER_01 39:03

So so I like to use nail scissors to um to thin them. So anyway, now you have covered up your seeds, and the next thing you need to do is water them, and you want to thoroughly water them, but you got to be careful because you don't want to use uh a strong spray of water because you're gonna unearth those seeds and they'll go floating off into oblivion. So there's two ways you can water them. Um, I have a one of those hose nozzles that has all different kinds of openings on it, and one of them is a mist setting. So that's one of my favorite things to use is take this, take it outside and use my mist setting to totally water that tray of seeds. Or alternatively, if you have one of these kits that has a bottom tray, you can pour the water not on top of the seeds, but underneath those cell packs and to the tray and let those uh cell packs wick the moisture up. Oh, interesting. And that's called bottom watering in case anybody cares.

SPEAKER_00 40:15

Learning a lot of new stuff today.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

Uh so um then you want to put that plastic cover on if you have one of those kits, or if you uh have the strawberry, you're using the strawberry container, just close that lid down. And now the fun begins. You get to put them in a warm place, but not in direct sunlight. So you can put them in the window, in a window that gets um indirect sunlight. Um in the olden days, I'm gonna show my age now, um, when my mom would start seeds, she would put them on top of the refrigerator because you know it was not all those, remember how we had refrigerators that didn't have cabinets above them? Yeah. Yeah. Well, and maybe some people still do. My my refrigerator has a cabinet above it, but but that's a great place because the you know the heat from the uh refrigerator motor, it just keeps that area, you know, kind of nice and warm up there. Cozy, cozy, but it has to be near near light. And then keep checking those those trays every single day. And uh once you see those first little leaves pop up, those are called, in case anyone wants a piece of trivia, those are called cotyledon leaves, not true leaves. The first leaves are leaves that poke their way through the soil, right? So they usually have those rounded edges, and then the second set of leaves will look like the leaves of the plant. So if it's lettuce, it will look like a lettuce leaf. If it's a pea, it'll look like a pea leaf. So the second set of leaves are called true leaves, and you'll see that a lot when you're reading gardening books, and when you want to transplant these plants into the garden, some seed packets might say, wait until it has three sets of true leaves or four sets of true leaves, or it might say transplant when it's four inches tall. But if you see the term true leaves, that's that's what it's talking about. And yeah, so you're taking the lid off once it germinates. You want to make sure that it is in a bright, brightly lit window, or if you really are going to get into seed starting, you can buy grow lights. Have you ever used a grow light?

SPEAKER_00 42:38

I have not, but I've seen them. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:40

And they're just fluorescent lights that hang on chains, and then you can lower them to the height of the plant, and that way the plant is getting its very specific source of light. If you're just doing it without that, you'll notice that your plants are gonna quickly start leaning towards where the window is. And so you also want to be sure and turn your seed tray every day or so so that they don't get leaning and you have crooked plants. Nothing works. Yeah. But the other thing that you guys are doing out at the demonstration garden is you're doing it in a hoop house, which I imagine is covered with shade cloth or something. Right, right. Yeah. Yeah. So it's getting indirect light, but not total full sun.

SPEAKER_00 43:27

Correct. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:29

And then you're gonna let those plants grow on until your seed packet tells you, you know, how tall they're supposed to get until they're ready to be transplanted. And then there's one more step you have to do. You can't just whisk them from the lovely 70 degree weather of your home out into the cold, cruel world. Yeah. So what you have to do is called hardening them off, harden off. And that means that. You take them out to a sheltered area like a patio, a covered patio, and you let them sit outside for a couple of days and keep an eye on them, keep them watered. Sometimes, because I get critters in my backyard, I'll actually make a little cage out of chicken wire so that bunnies and such can't come eat them. Right. So I'll I'll cover them up with a little chicken wire cage so that they can't uh so that they'll last and not and not get eaten. And then after they've hardened off for a couple of days, then you plant them in your garden just like you would plants that you bought from the nursery.

SPEAKER_00 44:39

Finally, the days arrived now. It hadn't been that long, really.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

And and that's a good question, too. How how long till you can plant them outside? Well, again, that seed packet is your friend because it will tell you that they're ready to go out in the garden at usually a certain height or a certain uh number of true leaves on on the plant. And you can kind of, you know, you can just judge by based on what things look like when you go to the nursery, right? We we all kind of know what what it should look like. Um so how often people often ask, now that it's germinated, do I need to water it as often as when I was waiting for it to germinate? And the answer to that is no. But these are small containers, so you're not going to want to let them dry out either. So I just basically take my finger and touch the top of the soil, and if it's still moist, I don't water, and but if it's starting to feel dry, then I will use a gentle spray to water or bottom water again. And then the other thing is to decide whether or not you need to feed them, and that kind of depends on the on the plant. There are some plants like you know, broccoli and cauliflower, for instance. Those we you know we grow in those cell packs for a pretty long time, you know, before they're ready to go out in the garden. So if you're growing them in those cell packs for you know four to six weeks before you plant them out in the garden, they might need a little bit more nutrition. And so I would use an organic liquid fertilizer and I would add it to the water when I'm watering them, but I would do it only at a quarter strength. It has to be super weak because these are baby baby babies and and we don't want to burn them by over-fertilizing.

SPEAKER_00 46:37

Right. And uh the rep from Kellogg was saying that it weakens the cells of the plants if you over-fertilize as well.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

That's that's something I didn't even know. I knew it wasn't good, but I didn't realize it actually weakened the cells. Good to know. Yeah, so that is that's it. So it's really actually super easy. You choose your shoe, your your seeds, you moisten the soil, you fill your containers, you put the seed in, you make sure it's at the right depth and cover it with soil, you water it, and then you wait and you make sure it doesn't dry out. And that's pretty much it.

SPEAKER_00 47:14

One thing I like you were saying about hardening off, putting them kind of on on a patio table or something, because if those Santa Ana winds do come, you can whisk them back into the house. Absolutely. And wait until things calm down to plant them. So that's a really good uh point.

SPEAKER_01 47:30

Yeah, it it is really um imperative when you've got these new baby plants that you've worked so hard to get that you protect them from terrible things like Santa Ana winds and bunnies and squirrels and all of those competing things. So um we have a little, I think we have some time left. How much time do we have left? Uh we're at 49. We have about 10 minutes or so. The perfect amount of time to talk about what to plant during the cool season. The actual instructions for planting seeds are great for whatever time of year you're planting seeds. Um, but now let's talk a little bit about what to plant this time of year. So in August, we're going to start things for the cool season. So let's talk about veggies first. For veggies, we're going to want to start lots of lettuces, any of the green stuff. So lettuce, spinach, kale, any leafy radicio, you know, any of those leafy varieties are great to start in six packs now indoors. Uh the other things that we can start if we if we want, we could start pea plants indoors. Personally, I prefer to because peas are so easy to sow directly in the ground. And kind of my rule of thumb is if it's a big seed like a pea or a bean, I sow it directly in the ground because they they're easy to handle, they they germinate, you know, just fine. They they go deeper in the ground. The bigger the seed, the deeper you plant it. So those are going to go half an inch to an inch deep, and so they're not gonna dry out as fast as that poor little lettuce seed that's only in a quarter inch of soil. The other thing that you want to directly sow are any root vegetables. And the reason for that is you don't want to disturb a root, right? So if you planted a carrot in a six-pack, right, then you'd have to dig that root up or you know, pop it out and put it back in the ground.

SPEAKER_00 49:37

Doesn't sound good.

SPEAKER_01 49:38

No, and it's not gonna be a happy root. It might be okay. Um, but it it would prefer not to be disturbed. So I direct sew root vegetables personally. Uh, and the root vegetables, uh almost all root vegetables are great for the fall time. So you would want to direct sew your carrots, radishes, turnips, beets, all of those would be fabulous to direct sow in October because the soil's gonna be nice and warm, they're gonna germinate, you know, pretty fast because the soil's nice and warm, and because they are roots, then they they won't have that uh disturbance. Now, what's gonna happen though when you sow those is you're gonna have these plants coming up way too close together, right? And so you're gonna have to go back and thin them out. And uh if they're big enough to eat, you can steam them and eat them, but if they're too tiny, then you just toss them in the compost bin. Um, what else for the cool season? Any of the coal crops, and those are great to start indoors in August. So that would be your Brussels sprouts, broccoli, cabbages, um, cauliflower, as I mentioned, those are all great to start indoors in August, and then by mid-October they will be ready to plant out in the garden. And if if you're gonna plant out in the garden in mid-October, you're gonna want to back up when you plant to those plants about six weeks. And so we're talking the end of August is if you're gonna plant in the middle of October, is when you want to start your seeds indoors. If, for instance, you live at the coast at the beach and you don't really get hot weather, um, then you can start your seeds, you know, in middle mid-August and plant them out in mid to late September if you don't get those hot days. So it depends on where you live, too. Um, onions, also great thing to plant. In the fall in California, um, this is something I didn't know till I became a master gardener. Um, we choose the type of onion based on the latitude that we're at.

SPEAKER_00 51:59

Oh. Who knew?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Yeah. And so because we are in a southerly latitude, we want what are called short day onions. If you don't get short day onions, you'll never get a bulb. You'll just get giant fat green onions, but they'll never bulb. If you plant short day onions, then they will bulb. So if you're gonna plant onions from seed, plant the short day onions where we live. Don't plant the long day onions.

SPEAKER_00 52:26

And that means that we have a shorter day that time of year?

SPEAKER_01 52:29

It means that our days are shorter that time of year and that the onions grow and mature during those short days. Okay. Um, the the long day onions do not um that those are what you need for the north, you know, and you would plant those in the springtime and then they mature over the summer. So because we have a different growing season, it's light up there until 10, 11 at night.

SPEAKER_00 52:55

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

So here we want to plant the I mean you can plant any kind, but if you uh I was so frustrated because for years I would never get those nice big fat onions, and I never knew why until I became a master gardener, and then someone told me, or I read it, or something. So short day onions are what we need here. Um so let's talk about flowers. I think we have a couple minutes left. Yep, we do. Uh let's talk about flowers from seed, because I love to plant flowers from seed, so I can get some cool, different kind of tall things. And some of my favorites in the um cool season to start are snapdragons, and that's for a couple reasons. One was I told you that I like tall flowers, and you can get very tall snapdragons. Who knew? Like three feet, four feet tall snapdragons. They are spectacular in the garden. Yeah. The other thing is snapdragons here where we live, because we grow them in the winter, are susceptible to the fungal disease rust. So if you've ever grown snap dragons and they've gotten a lot of rust, um, that's because uh we are susceptible to that here, because it's moister in the winter and and those conditions encourage that fungal disease. There are rust resistant snapdragons, and so when you buy from seed, you can, or when you grow from seed, you can look for rust resistant varieties. So that's another reason that you would plant from seed.

SPEAKER_00 54:22

Good tip.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Yeah. The other thing I love to plant are the tall varieties of stock. Do you like the smell of stock? Yes. Yeah, beautiful. I think it's heavenly. Um, and most again, most of the ones we can buy are very short. They still have that great scent, but I love to see those really tall stalks. Have you ever gotten them in a bouquet, like from a florist?

SPEAKER_00 54:46

I think so, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 54:47

Yeah, and aren't they? They're long, right? Yeah, yeah. Beautiful. And and yet when in our gardens, we never get to see those. Um, but if you order varieties of the tall stock from seed, then you can have those tall stalks in your garden. And then calendula is a lovely uh flower that comes in shades of orange and gold. And have you ever put those petals in a salad? Uh no, I haven't. They're they're edible and they they actually do look really pretty just sprinkled in a salad. So uh that's kind of a fun thing.

SPEAKER_00 55:22

Yeah, I think I've seen that at restaurants, but I have not done it myself.

SPEAKER_01 55:26

Yeah. And then, of course, we have viola, pansies, uh the English daisies, uh, also known as bellus. Those are all great cool season seeds to start in containers to plant out later. Uh Delphinium, there's some amazing varieties of delphiniums. Uh, we can get a couple varieties in our nurseries, but you know, there's like New Zealand delphiniums that you know grow five feet tall. And so if you if you get into seed catalogs, you'll start finding these uh plants that are are pretty, pretty fun.

SPEAKER_00 56:03

I'm gonna start tomorrow.

SPEAKER_01 56:05

Yeah. So you can you can tell I'm addicted. So and and so my advice would be to just you know get those seed catalogs, take a look at them, uh, google cool season veggies, google cool season flowers, um, because of course I couldn't give everyone uh a total list of of what to plant now. Um but for our last two minutes, I would like to mention a couple of books that I think are really helpful for folks. And um, of course, one of our favorite uh books that we use, particularly for our in the garden monthly show, is Pat Welsh's Southern California Organic Gardening. It's actually arranged month by month, and she has a chart at the end of each month's chapter that actually tells you what plants you should be planting. That is so helpful. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:01

I can't imagine how much time it's taken her to put all this together, but it sure is helpful.

SPEAKER_01 57:05

Yes. Um, then also uh it's always a great idea if folks are serious about gardening to get a copy of our California Master Gardener Handbook, which is available through the University of California. So you can just Google that and you'll find how you can order that. And then another one of my favorite books for the veggie garden is Sunset Western Garden Book of Edibles. It has a page or a couple of pages devoted to each veggie. It tells you by zone when is the appropriate time to plant them, and it it talks about favorite varieties for each veggie, and it is for a Western garden, and so it's very appropriate for where we live. For our area.

SPEAKER_00 57:55

Very good tips.

SPEAKER_01 57:56

So I think we're probably just about out of time, yes?

SPEAKER_00 58:00

We are.