Gardening-Starting from Seed

I've had a couple people ask me how we start our garden. So I thought I'd do a little tutorial for you.
We started our garden, from seed, several weeks ago. You'll have to look on the back of the packages of seeds to see when you need to start yours.
One misconception is that you can start them indoors, under normal light, and then transplant outdoors when it's warm. Been there, done that, doesn't work. The plants won't be strong enough. You need to grow them under plant lights, and the light needs to be adjustable because you want it just a could inches higher than your plants. As your plants grow, you adjust the height of the light higher and higher.
I'm sure there are plenty of websites out there that can give you more information. But here are a couple pictures of ours, in case you're interested.
We purchase these little pods. You could use dixie cups and a bag of soil, but I like these because I can just pour the water in the tray that these sit in, and the soil will soak up whatever it needs. If you use the dixie cups, you have to guess at how much water to put in.

So the first step is to put these pods in a tray and get them wet. They will soak up the water and grow tall.

Once they have expanded, we put them in the tray and poked holes in the soil (the depth of our hole was depending on what was being planted-read the back of the seed packet for guidance) The sharp end of a pencil works great for going down 1/4" or deeper. The eraser end worked well for those that were suppose to be shallow (less than 1/4" deep).

Plant your seeds according the the directions on the package and use the eraser side of the pencil to cover them with dirt.
Once you have them planted, get them under the light. This is ours. It's 2' long. G ordered it online somewhere. If you want to know, email me and I'll get the info. You can find the bulbs at Lowe's or Home Depot and they have ballisters too. I think he ordered this one because it holds 4, 2' long bulbs and the ones in the store only held 2.

The important thing is to have something adjustable. You can make a stand out of wood or PVC pipe, and attach the light using chains. G decided that he could put these hooks under the cabinets in our food storage room, and adjust it this way.
These are our tomato plants. See how close the light is. That's key. You want it just a couple inches higher than your plants.

Don't forget to make yourself a "key" if you're planting more than one thing. They all look alike in the beginning and you don't want to find yourself planting "flowers" in your "vegetable garden" in the sun when they were suppose to be in your shade flower garden.

Usually we just grow veggies, but I thought I'd try some flowers for all my flower gardens this year, as flowers can be expensive if you have a large yard. So far, they are doing great.

I know, I can hear some of you saying-"Why go through the hassle when you can buy the plants already grown?" You're right. You can buy them and skip this process. But I think my rationale is that, in the past, I have always taken things for granted. I've always expected there to be tomatoes in the store, that tasted good, and were a decent price. Or that the nurseries would have plants for me to purchase. I've taken the easy road and leaned too much, in my opinion, on others. But I'm now seeing that tomatoes aren't always in my stores (yes, remember the scare and they didn't even sale them). In fact, I saw a sign at Wendy's that said that I had to ask for a tomato on my hamburger, otherwise they weren't going to do it because of the cost as Florida's tomato crop has been wiped out this year (2010). And, the tomatoes in the store are expensive, $2.99/lb, and have no taste! Now, we're probably going to start seeing the plants show up in stores, but who knows, there may come a time that some insect or something wipes them out. So I want the knowledge, and experience, of how to do it from seed.

I asked G when we started this, if you could grow a tomato plant indoors, and never transplant it outside. I was worried about pollination and such. He said that most are self pollinating and that, theoretically, you could. So that's on my list for this winter-to grow a tomato plant indoors! Doesn't it sound like fun? Fresh, home grown tomatoes in Dec-Jan. Yah, I know all of you New Mexico, California and Florida people probably have tomatoes in Dec outdoors, but in Ohio, not a chance! Wish me luck!!

UPDATE: The tomato didn't survive. He got over a foot tall, and then died. I'm not sure if he just didn't get enough light, or developed a disease. I'll stick to growing outdoors for now!