Starting Fall Crop Seedlings

I always use the Louisiana Vegetable Planting Guide that LSU AgCenter puts out to help me time my planting.  It has cultural recommendations that tell you when to plant each crop for Spring and Fall, how many seeds per 100 foot of row, the depth to plant, inches between plants and how many days until harvest. 

A goldmine of information:  LSU AgCenter Vegetable Planting Guide

I really am not even close to having everything figured out.  I try to learn by my mistakes and I'm not averse to trying something new.  Here's an example:  For the past 5 years, I've planted my broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, and brussels sprouts at the tail end of the planting dates for Fall.  The recommended dates are 7/15 - 9/1.  This year I'm going to plant on the early end and see if I like the results.  I've done fine with those crops planting on the late side, but planting earlier might give me some yield/size advantages being that the days are longer.  One problem I can foresee planting earlier is the pest problems may be more intense due to the heat.  We'll experiment and see how it goes.

First I assemble my little planting pots in trays and put them on my workbench.  As you can see there's barely room on my cluttered workbench to plant my seeds.  I'll put cleaning/organizing my workbench on the rainy day to-do list.

Starting Fall seeds

I got some good seed starting mix from the nursery in town where Russ works and I use a cup to carefully fill each pot with soil.

Adding seed starting potting mix

I got my broccoli, cauliflower, brussel sprouts, cabbage, and bok choy seeds out of the freezer and poured them into my hand.  I use my fingers to drop a couple (or three or four) into each pot.  I'll thin out later.  I want to put a little extra as insurance as this seed is all about 5 years old and I'm not sure how the germination is going to be.


Good Seed

Once I get all the seed planted, you can see that I take some freezer tape and a Sharpie and label the flats.  All of the seed is in the same family and the seeds and the seedlings look remarkably similar for a while.  It is important to label them.  Then I stack them and bring them to the back patio where they'll hopefully sprout. 

Cauliflower, Broccoli, and Cabbage seed planted on July 15th

I have a water bottle that I spray the soil down so that it is moist.  This will cause the seed to swell and germinate.

Moistening the soil

Then it is just a waiting game.  Each morning and afternoon I keep close tabs on the flats and make sure that the soil stays moist.  This is crucial for germination.

Tick tock, tick tock...

In just a few days, what have we here?


The broccoli is sprouting!

I've always enjoyed watching things grow.  No matter how many times I see it, it still amazes me how so much life is contained in a little seed that appears to be dead.  Soil + Water + Sunlight = The miracle of the seed.  It looks like the germination is still really good on the seed!  

The miracle of the seed

We'll update you on the progress of our experiment with planting these on the early side.  It is hard to even think about the Fall right now with us being in the middle of Summer.  Always gotta plan ahead, though.