![]() ![]() This is the type of potting soil that gave me the most success with my seedlings, and because it had the right amount of fertilizer but also seemed to work ok for starting seeds, I think I’m just going to stick to using it from now on. The other ones were growing much more slowly because they just didn’t have enough fertilizer to give the plants the nutrition that they needed. And the older soil that I had used a couple of years ago worked much better and my seedlings were really thriving with that soil. And then I had some old leftover potting soil from the first year I tried this method and I decided to use it to fill a couple of my containers. I think it was intended more for use with plants that were already established. (Update – July 2022: This year I had a bit of an unintentional experiment with potting soil because I had bought some organic potting soil that didn’t have much fertilizer in with it. I think that for next year’s garden I’m going to just go back to the potting soil again since it worked so well for my tomatoes before.) So that might be something to keep in mind when deciding what to use for planting your seeds. ![]() I think I should have either made sure my seed starting mix had some type of fertilizer added to it or I should have transplanted my seedlings into a potting soil with some fertilizer after they had sprouted and grown for a few weeks. My tomato seedlings germinated fine but then the growth has been very very slow since then, so my guess is that the seed starting mix I used didn’t have enough nutrients to feed that plants. (Update – May 2021: My tomato seedlings didn’t do nearly as well this year as last year (although I tried squash seedlings and they seemed to do well), and the only thing I did differently this year than last year was to use a seed starting mix rather than potting soil. (Note: a lot of people say that for starting seeds indoors, it’s really best to use a finer soil that’s designed for seed starting rather than regular potting mix, but since potting mix was what I had conveniently available at the time I used that and I was still able to start seeds successfully.) (I can’t find the receipt for the exact price, but it was close to that.) And then I bought a large bag of organic potting soil that was about $11. The cost of the grow light that I bought was around $37. But if you just want a start a few seeds to try out unique varieties and if you stick with a simple grow light system, then it can actually be quite affordable. If you’re looking to start a lot of different seeds indoors or if you get a really fancy grow light, then the price for buying grow lights can really add up. There are many simple grow lights that are very reasonably priced. It’s definitely possible to spend a lot of money on grow lights and to have a really elaborate system, but it doesn’t always have to be that way. Cheaper Versions of Grow LightsĮven though I was afraid that a grow light system would end up being really expensive, when I started looking into more, I realized that there’s a wide variety of different grow lights with quite a range of different prices too. And, as an extra bonus, since the price of buying seedlings can add up, starting my owns seeds at home also saved some money, too, since starting your own seeds at home is great way to save money on your garden. So last year I finally decided to give indoor seed starting a try so I could grow the varieties I wanted to grow and have fun experimenting with trying new varieties that are harder to find. So my only way to grow some of those less common varieties would be to start my own tomatoes from seed indoors. (And if you’re looking to try some new heirloom seed varieties, you can find some of my recommendations for sources for heirloom seeds here.) but I don’t find those varieties as seedlings where I live. ![]() I wanted to try some harder to find, more obscure tomato varieties, like the Large Red tomato which was one of the most common early 19th century tomato varieties and Hartman’s Yellow Gooseberry tomatoes, etc. For tomatoes, for example, there are dozens of different tomato varieties available as seeds, but there is much less variety for seedlings. ![]() One of the problems I always ran into when buying seedlings, though, is that there is a much more limited variety available for seedlings than for seeds. So I stuck to direct sowing seeds outdoors when the weather was warm enough and buying seedlings for plants like tomatoes that I couldn’t direct sow in my gardening zone. I hadn’t really thought it would be possible to have a DIY grow light system that would be both simple and cheap at the same time. For years I avoided trying a grow light at home because I had figured it would probably end up being expensive and complicated and would take up a lot of space. ![]()
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