New Seed Starting Trials

Well every winter I go a little squirely and order more seeds than I can grow in 5 years in my limited garden space. The desire to try new things and learn the much forgot art of the garden. Art it is - as it is not as simple as putting seeds in dirt and spraying some water on them. There is so many subtleties. Much like any art.

This year I did a little trawling on LED lights to see if I could have a better jump on spring indoors. Maybe keep a few plants alive during winter. Although the lights idea has not really taken off as hoped (some cooling issues on my initial design). I came across "non-woven seedling bags)" on aliexpress for 100 bags for $3. The idea of planting seeds then not disturbing the plant roots when planting out appealed to me. The idea of not dealing with reused pots won me over. So I ordered a couple lots and tested them all but seeds needing heat as the bags are a bit deep.

New Grow bags

I bought cheap shoe boxes in a bundle from home depot. 5 for $2 as the grow containers to keep them from falling over. They extra helpful as these things are thirsty. You need a lot of water frequently.

The results though are impressive. The roots auto prune when they grow pass the bag, they deep enough to support a good few weeks growth (I thought). This is 2 weeks in for kale. I doubt I got 2 weeks left till these need to find larger bags or soil

Now if I could use top heat, these would be great for eggplant and peppers! Or perhaps just as second pots. The one down side is the time it takes to stuff them. Its a bit more work than pots. That said, its very therapeutic playing with the soil in winter.