Natural, Cheap Seed-Starting

Growing vegetables and flowers from seeds can be a way to save money in the organic garden. However, if you succumb to all of the seed-starting bells and whistles offered by nurseries and garden catalogs, growing from seed can become a costly endeavor. Consider exchanging one expensive seed-starting tool you’ve used in the past for its cheap or free alternative.

Obtaining Seeds

Expensive Idea:

Order seeds from the first catalog that hits your mailbox.

Cheap Alternatives:

Organic gardeners can save the seeds from the flowers and vegetables they grow in the garden. For gardeners with rare heirlooms, seed saving is more than a way to save money; it becomes a way to preserve biodiversity by saving certain species that have fallen out of fashion in garden catalogs.

Save seeds that come from non-hybrid plants. Seeds saved from hybrid plants produce inferior offspring that don’t have the traits of the parent plant. Make sure the seeds are completely dry before placing them into storage. For tomato and cucumber seeds, place the fresh seeds in a dish on the counter until a layer of mold develops. Then rinse the seeds in a colander, and dry them on a towel before placing them in a wax envelope.

If the seeds from your garden don’t provide you with the varieties you desire for next season, engage in a seed swap. You can swap with neighbors, community garden club members, or in an online forum. Ask for and offer organic seeds free from GMO (genetically modified organism) material, if possible.

Seed Starting Mix

Expensive Idea:

Buy a bag of sterile seed starting mix at your local big box store.

Cheap Alternative:

Finely screened compost from an organic gardener’s compost bin is an excellent seed starting medium. The loose, fluffy consistency of finished compost encourages healthy root systems in seedlings. Any diseases harmful to seedlings die when the temperature in the bin reaches sustained temperatures of 120 to 150 degrees F. The beneficial microorganisms that remain can bolster a plant’s immune system.

Garden Lights

Expensive Idea:

Spend $300 or more on a multi-tiered grow light system.

Cheap Alternative:

Hang shop lights a few inches above the seedlings you start indoors. You don’t need to install fancy grow light bulbs in the fixtures; regular fluorescent bulbs are fine for seed starting if you keep the lights very close to the plants.

Seed Starting Kits

Expensive Idea:

Buy plastic seed starting pots and trays each year, and discard them after a one-time use.

Cheap Alternatives:

Give new life to food containers that can’t go in the recycle bin. Yogurt containers, egg cartons, and margarine tubs all make great seed starting containers. Poke a drainage hole in the bottom of each before planting.

Gardeners can also make seed starting pots for next to nothing by fashioning pots from newsprint. You can buy a wooden form to help you roll the newspaper into a pot shape, but this isn’t mandatory. Roll a strip of newspaper tightly around a baby food jar, and remove the jar. Tuck the top ends into the middle, and add your growing medium. Shove the pots from end to end in a plastic tray to allow them to bolster one another up. Newspaper pots work best for transplants that grow quickly, as they degrade in the presence of moisture.

Speedy Germination

Expensive Idea:

Buy an electric seedling propagation mat for each tray of seedlings you plan to start.

Cheap Alternatives:

It’s true that many vegetables and annual flowers prefer warm germination temperatures of at least 75 degrees F. However, after they germinate, these same plants tolerate temperatures in the lower 60’s. You can invest in one electric seedling propagation mat, and rotate trays from the mat to their growing station after germination occurs. The warmth found at the top of the refrigerator also provides prime germinating real estate, so move trays from this spot as soon as you see green.

Source:

Hamilton, G. (2004). Organic Gardening. Dorling Kindserly Publishing: New York.