Don’t Make THESE Seedling Mistakes

My mom taught me to use potting mix on the bottom of seed trays then seed starting mix over the seeds. It allows for more economic seed starting on starting a lot of plants.

I just use blended dried leaves and ground soil (1:1 ratio) with some bone meal as my seed starting mix. Never really understood the appeal of seed starting mixes to be honest. I tell my seeds from day 1, i'm not the best gardener so this is survival of the fittest.

I noticed quite a boost in health for my plant babies when I started testing out bottom watering certain trays with a compost tea made from worm castings. The chosen trays of starts did so well I adopted it as my common practice for all of my starts a few years ago. I think so many times we can be afraid to try something different from what we were taught or what we've heard is the proper way. Growing up my grandparent's garden was all till, miracle gro, space plants so cultivator can fit between, and so on. Now I plant everything pretty close and still have loads of successes among the few failures. I'm going to attempt grafting tomato plants this year! Saying it here because literally 80% people in my life get that glazed over look when I start talking plants. 😂

What I love about the epic gardening seed cells is they make transplanting things with tap roots SO easy thanks to the larger hole at the bottom! So I've had no issue with like my sunflowers. (No, I was not paid to say this 😂 just a fan.)

Another myth, though you touched on it, is one tomato or pepper seedling per container. I'll start maybe 10 or 15 seeds in a 2-inch container. After they get their first set of true leaves, I'll separate them out. Saves so much space! I also stopped using seed starting mix which saves me money. Potting mix with a good dose of worm castings works great for me. Considering a lot of farmers sew right into the ground, why are home gardeners being taught to be so overly cautious!? Thank you for clearing up these myths.

another banger of a video guys! Loved how Kevin addressed the sterilizing soil. It makes me so sad to see videos when they are microwaving the soil lol bc soil is supposed to be FULL of life. For instance, like Jacque’s trick of adding castings to his soil, that just adds a nice boost of soil fertility and is beneficial to the very diverse and complicated soil food web! If anyone is interested in knowing more about the ecosystem in our soils, I recommend the book called “Teaming With Microbes” by Jeff Lowenfels. Such a good read about the complexities of soil and how they interact with plants! Btw, this isn’t a promotion, I just really like soil science….its neat

I only recently learned the power of having some compost/worm castings in your seed starting mix. HUGE (pun intended!) difference in size from those that were grown in a sterile mix. Plus, they need less fertilizer when they start geowing robustly!!! Win-win!!

We've been learning a lot about gardening from the Epic Gardening team! I am a teacher who has started the journey of getting clean food to our small community and my students love your channel! Thanks for helping make the tricks of the trade accessible to everyone! Ps: My students love the Kevin and Jacque Duo and call them the "Sprouts twins"

I laughed when you started talking about trimming the roots. I do quite a bit of hydroponic growing, and root pruning is an accepted practice. I was nervous the first time, but now i can whack away with the best of them 😂

Another upside to the multiple seeds per cell is that you can select the fastest growing or best looking of the group to move upwards.

I also ran into problems using sterilized mix, whether store bought or sterilized myself using the oven. There's a lot of mold in the grow shelf environment since this is an older house, so it would always colonize the sterile soil and damage my seedlings. I decided to switch to homemade leaf mold and compost, to force the mold to compete with the native fungi and microbes, and I haven't had the same problem since. Sterilized mix is expensive, and when I tried to make it myself, it's a waste of electricity. It also smelled quite bad, since I accidentally overcooked it.

I start about 80% of my seeds indoors and for that I sterlize the growing medium - simply to help reduce the possibility of fungus gnats. But trust me, if I had a longer growing season to seed start outdoors - or could add a green house to my yard, I would skip all that. Fun vid - thank you.

I have learned so much from your channel and Jacques channel. Growing seedlings under lights was a new concept 5 years ago for me. The germination rate of seeds drastically improved with your seed trays. I wish there was a bigger size for tomatoes. Thank you for sharing your knowledge.

Even though I've been gardening for over 30 years. I've certainly learned a lot from my mistakes but for some reason I always start fretting this time of year. Thank you for the great advice.

I like to include neem cake (neem seed meal) and some micronized azomite in my seed starting mix, which is mostly coconut coir. Plus a bit of yucca extract and innoculant and perlite.

I like using biotone starter in my starter mix. But I also use composted and filtered soil mixed with coco coir, worm castings, vermiculite, and just a little of the biotone fertilizer. I know you can start with less, but when I have plants that I'm starting inside three months ahead of time, they need more than just the seed food.

I have been planting so many seeds during the weeks of rain in San Diego. I miss being out in the garden so I may have gone a little overboard ! I really like the epic six cell and 4 cell packs as well as the strong trays. I don't have to worry anymore about carrying a tray of seedlings and having the tray buckle and the seedlings end up all over the ground. Thanks for making such a nice durable product!

Great tip about sieving potting mix. When I used pure seed starting mix I found it really hard to get the right fertilization after the seeds sprouted. I now use a mix of Espoma potting mix and Jiffy seed starting mix and I just pick the big pieces of wood out of the way -- sieving will be more efficient. I am sure that Promix or other good potting soil would work just as well -- Espoma was just what I happened to have. I have used Promix for my winter sowing with good results, and those seedlings get no supplemental anything. Also, don't despair if your tomato seedlings look terrible, they are remarkably tough plants like most vines. Mine turned purple and spindly last year due to lack of proper nutrients but once they were in the ground they took off and produced well.

I have to start sunflowers inside and transplant out because of bird pressure. They love to eat the newly sprouted sunflowers. After they are about 2 weeks old and a few inches tall I have been successful in transplanting them outside without much stress or stunting. Otherwise I get no sunflowers. Strangely though the sunflowers that come back on their own don't seem to be bird bait!

Great video, Kevin and Jaques One other myth seed heat mats are necessary. They help speed up germination, but they are not necessarily needed. I started using them for the first time, 20+ years this season, and honestly, I failed to take seedlings off quickly, and of course, they did not make it. Back to not using heat mats for me. 😅