What's up?

Romanesco Broccoli seedlings are among the first-born members of this year's Small-Holdings lineup.  They are still swaddled in a makeshift plant-nursery consisting of seed trays piled on top of the radiator with a 25 watt fluorescent plant bulb and a 60 watt incandescent plant bulb in a clamp lamp. Between the radiator and the 60 watt incandescent bulb, there's enough heat to germinate things like tomatoes and peppers which, much like me, won't come out unless it's almost 70 degrees.  So in case you're thinking you don't have the time or space to start your own seeds, think again- then go to the hardware store.

What you need:

1 radiator- luckily, that came with your apartment. Check!

1 clamp lamp $13 

1 fluorescent strip fixture $8.99 

1 fluorescent tube $6

1 incandescent plant bulb $6.99

Subtotal: 34.98

Plus Seed trays $6 each for 72 cells (that's 8.3 cents per seed)

So if you start 144 seeds, you've spent 24 cents per plant in lighting and heating equipment and 8.3 cents per seed in real estate. So for 32.3 cents extra per seed (which range from 4 to 16 cents each), you don't have to figure out how to get dozens of six week old transplants from the garden center to your house without killing them or wrecking the upholstery in your zip/borrowed/not paid off car. Worst case scenario, you spend about 50 cents per plant plus electricity whereas at the garden center they'd relieve you of about 6 times that much hard-earned cheddar and you'd have to vacuum the car afterwards.  As far as the Dos Manos financial division is concerned, that sounds less like a convenience and more like insult to injury. You could figure in labor costs but seeding is easy and fun and you can do it any time you want while singing along to David Bowie's greatest hits and drinking beer- to me that isn't labor, that's very nearly recreation.

For my seed trays I used a complete setup made by Burpee that comes with the large tray that holds the cells, 9-cell trays, dehydrated coir pellets and a clear top to hold in heat and moisture.  I've been shopping around and this was the only one I could find that doesn't use peat as the starting medium.  Instead it uses coir, a coconut fiber product.  Peat is a non-renewable resource so even though those peat pellets and little peat pots for seeding are natural and biodegradable, you should try not to use them because you can't offset or reverse the environment effects of consuming that resource... and that isn't what organic gardening is all about, is it?  Ask the buyer at your local garden center to stock coconut derived or other sustainable seed starting mediums. The plastic trays are a bit of a bummer but they are both recyclable and reusable.  If you are re-using some old trays from last season, like Dos Manos, just wash them thoroughly in very hot water and your favorite earth-friendly disinfectant to prevent spreading fungus and disease from last year's soil or seedlings.