Deep Root Seed Starting System

The weather was pretty nice on Tuesday, May 24th. It put me in the mood to do something about the seedstarting system that I ordered back in April. Ideally this would have already been put to good use, but so far I haven't had the ideal time to get things started for this gardening season.

The system itself is cool. It has a little water reserve underneath a small plastic tray. On top of the tray lays a piece of a felt-like fabric that absorbs the water and keeps each cell nice and moist. (The directions state that there's enough water in the bottom that you'll only have to worry about water every five days or so.)



To start the seeeds in the seedstarter, I filled each cell with a potting mix and added warm water creating very damp soil (almost like a mud!).

I decided that the Burpee Organic Mesclun Classic Mix was going to be started this way. Using my finger I dug a small hole in the center of each cell so that I could drop seeds in.

I know that it wasn't necessary but I took the mix and tried to sort the seeds by type so that each row in the seed starting system would have the same type of greens growing in it. In my mind this made sense, but clearly it's not what was intended of the packet, the seeds are small!!
















When the planting was all done and the dirty was put away, the seedstarting system came inside and took a place on the plant table (we're not calling it a coffee table anymore) in front of the large window).

Tuulikki checks out the progress of the Mesclun Mix after 3 days. What's pretty cool about this is that the seedlings were to emerge in 10-14 days according to the package. However, with this cool system (thanks to some warmer temperatures and the sun too) the dome on top creates a little greenhouse effect and the seedlings pushed through in ALL 15 squares in just 3 days!

 A shot of all 15 cells. They all have greens growing in them! :-)

Cute!