This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase after clicking them, we will be compensated, but there is no additional cost to you. All opinions expressed are our own. Thank you for your support. As you may know, I love to garden. In the last few years. I've really gotten into it. Gardening in Phoenix has its pros and cons and there is a steep learning curve. The main pro is that we can grow things just about all year round! As a matter of fact one of my big goals is to have something growing in my garden all year round! The cons are the heat , the soil and the watering. Oh, and did I mention the heat? As I've been learning to grow a garden here, over the past 40 years, on and off again, I've learned how to combat the cons and to really enjoy the pros! So, here is my big secret. Until this year, I had never really sprouted my own transplants for my garden before. I mean, I'd done a few experiments, but nothing really large scale. But, this year, I have had a big idea and put my foot into my mouth and now I am learning to sprout seeds for transplant on a big scale! (At least big for me!) I have written before about one of the things I do at my church is to help plan the women's organizations monthly midweek activities. We were having a planning meeting and I felt like we definitely needed to do a gardening class because:
And the list could definitely go on and on. In Phoenix, Spring gardens need to be going into the ground by the end of February in order for plants to beat the summer heat. So, I suggested we have a gardening class in February so that people could learn something about gardening on a budget and also have time to get something into the ground or into a pot! Then, I got really excited and said, "We could inexpensively start some plants for everyone to be able to take one home with them to give them a start!" Yes, I am insane. But, in reality, I had wanted to start sprouting my own transplants anyway and this was the motivation I needed. That is how this journey of discovery began for me, just a couple of months ago and since then I have been planting and watching videos and trying new things and discarding old ideas. I started out by purchasing seeds from various sources and saving egg cartons (as I had heard suggested) as containers to start my seeds and purchasing starter soil. I chose Miracle Gro. Pretty soon, I had egg cartons of sprouting onions and tomatoes. The pepper plants took a bit longer, and now other plants are joining the mix! That is how it all began, I was given a lot of info from a lot of sources, and some of it was great and some of it was adequate, some of it was contradictory. As I've muddled through, having some pretty good success and babying these little plants along, I've realized a few things about how I would start all over again in a different way the next time I start sprouting transplants for my garden! First, Containers! Because I was trying to sprout a good number of plants to be able to share with many people, I wanted to keep the price down if possible. Thus, you see the egg cartons above. Well, they worked to get the plants started, but I found that pretty quickly, I needed to quickly transplant them into something bigger. The onion roots were already growing into the bottom of those little cups within a couple of weeks and the tomatoes needed to be planted deeper to strengthen their stems. I was able to find peat pots at Dollar Tree. They were in the store, but I don't see them online. I did find them on Amazon though. I've also seen them at Walmart, Target and Lowe's. I was actually able to get some of these before I had finished planting my seeds, so besides the egg cartons, I used some of those to plant seeds in. I transplanted all of my egg carton sprouts into them as well. They were much nicer for the onions and a little nicer for the tomatoes. I still ended up transplanting my tomatoes one more time! After watching numerous videos, I finally settled on the red cup method! I would totally scrap the egg carton method and perhaps only use the peat pots sparingly for plants with shallower roots. I could have saved a lot of time and money if I would have started with the red cup method from the start. What the red cup method entails is using two cups, the red (or any color) and clear cups. You simply cut upside down V shapes in about 3 places around the bottom of the red cup and slip it inside a clear cup. Fill the cup halfway full (for tomatoes) with soil. Plant your seeds. As the seeds sprout and begin to get taller, you can add soil around the seedling to strengthen the stem of the plant. Adding soil up along the stalk doesn't work for all plants like it does for tomatoes. But, it does work for Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, brussels sprouts and plants in the cabbage family. Transplanting eggplant deeply is also recommended. It does not work for peppers or strawberries, so start those plants higher up in the cup so that they will get sun easier. When you transplant them, don't cover above the roots or they may rot. ![]() I transplanted the sprouts deeply in the soil of the red cups. There is a little room at the top where I can add more soil as needed. Tomatoes will grow roots wherever the soil is packed around them. This will help the plant grow stronger. Having the red cup inside the clear cup allows you to see how much water is in the bottom of the cup. It shouldn't reach higher that halfway up the 1" V that you cut in the bottom side of the cup. So, to recap. The next time I sprout transplants, I think that the peat pots for the onions are fine, but I will start out first thing with the red cups for tomatoes, peppers, (which have pretty long roots that seem to grow before the plant sprouts above the soil), and other plants with medium to deep roots. Each time I had to transplant to a larger pot, I panicked that my tomatoes or onions would die. It isn't good to to mess with the roots of plants too much! So far, they are all looking good, thankfully! Hopefully the next time they are transplanted will be into my or someone else's garden! Soil I purchased Miracle Gro Potting or Seed Starting Soil from Lowe's. I have no complaints with this soil. There are other starting soils available out there though, so you can choose something else if you like. I liked that the Miracle Gro was enriched for fast root development. A starting soil is important because it will generally have the extra nutrients added that starting seeds need. The soil also needs to have good drainage and usually starting soils have been sterilized from having any fungus or diseases that might inhibit the good growth of your plants. Save your composted soil for when you transplant them out into your garden when they reach a transplantable size. Seeds My seeds have all come from various sources. I've purchased Ferry-Morse from Lowe's, I've purchased seeds from Walmart, I've purchased Burpee seeds at Target, I've purchased Botanical Interests from Epic Gardening online and I've just recently become an affiliate partner with SeedsNow. It is fun to order online because the seed companies always send you free thank you extras. My lettuce seeds from Epic Gardening have just started sprouting! SeedsNow sent me some onion sets that I will be starting soon. Also, online you may find varieties that you haven't tried before. This year I am using San Marzano Tomato seeds and Burgess Buttercup Squash! It is a lot of fun to try something new in your garden. I am using my Garden Journal to keep track of where I purchase my seeds and how well they sprout. Then, I will know where I want to purchase my seeds in the future! (You can read about my Garden Journal here.) One new thing I have learned this year is that if you don't have a lot of money to go out an buy a bunch of seeds, you may have seeds ready to grow right in your own kitchen cupboards! I picked out a few of these beans and sprouted them in a wet paper towel, it took me about 3 days. Then I planted them in soil with the sprouted root downwards. Within a week, look what I have growing! You probably already have seeds in your spice cabinet, such as mustard, dill, fennel, and poppy seeds. There may or may not sprout depending on how they were treated when they were packaged. But, I took the ones I had and tried to sprout them like I did the bean seeds. The dill and the mustard sprouted really quickly. Also, many of my seed spices are old, so a newer batch might sprout better. I would really like the dill and mustard to sprout and grow because then I will have an unlimited amount for when I make pickles! Look at my great results with the mustard seeds! That scripture about having the faith of a mustard seed has really hit home! Light & Warmth Light is of course an important element of growing plants. So is warmth I've learned. When you are planting outside, it is important that your soil is past the freeze and staying at at least 50 degrees. When you are planting in a container to sprout, soil warmth is also important. When you first plant a seed into your soil, you don't need to worry about having light on your containers until the first little seedling breaks through the soil. But, you do need to keep your plants warm. I don't have a big problem with that here in my house where I am sprouting, we keep our house around 70 degrees in the winter without much effort. But, in colder climates and maybe if you are growing on a porch, garage, or in a greenhouse, there are ways to keep the temperatures where the soil needs to be. One answer is heat mats that you place under your seedlings. Right now you can get this pair for $14.99 on Amazon with an additional 10% off coupon! That is a great deal and a simple way to monitor your soil temperature. Another option would be to use a space heater in your garage or greenhouse to keep the temperatures at a good level for sprouting. Or an indoor space heater would work for the area inside of your home where you may be doing your sprouting. Once the plants begin to pop their tiny heads out of the soil, then light really comes into play! Most plants will need 6-8 hours of sunlight. Tomatoes and peppers will need even more. I began by putting my little baby plants in the window all day. But, as I began to have more plants than my window could handle and because we have mild, over 60 degree days here, I began setting them outside in the sunshine during the day and bring them in in the evening before the temperatures fell into the 30s. Surprisingly, they seemed to grow even faster outside than they did in the windows. Someone told me that glass actually blocks some of the sun's beneficial rays from the plants, so they they would rather be out in the straight sunlight! It seems to be true! Watering Now, here is the tricky part. Plants need water, and not stagnant water! That is why I like the red cup method because the slits allow the water to flow out the bottom and I can see how much is in there. Plants do not need too much water either or they will die from that as well. The red cup method comes through again because you can see if there is water in the bottom of the cup. If the water level is too high, don't water! The water level in the clear cup should not be more than halfway up the cut level of the red cup. That water in the base of the cup is nutrient rich. What I usually do is pour it off and use it to water again. My rule of thumb is that if the soil at the top is getting drier and there is no water in the base of the cup, I water. It doesn't take a lot of water, just enough to keep the soil moist. Before the seeds sprout, a misting method is good so that you don't disturb the soil too much and unbury the seeds. You just want to keep the soil and seed moist until it sprouts. Once it sprouts you can give it a little more water, but still don't drown it. One other thing I should point out is that if you are using peat pots, they tend to dry out more quickly than the red cups and may need more watering more often. Just keep an eye on your plants! So proud of my little pets! They are coming along really well! I have been very blessed that most of my seeds have sprouted and grown into seedlings! Right now I have about 80, so hopefully that will be enough to have as handouts to the people that come to our gardening workshop, plus some for my own garden! I'm so glad that I "opened my big mouth" with this idea because I have really enjoyed it. I have a month until the workshop, so the transplants should be big enough to go into the ground by then. They need to be 4-6 inches tall, for the tomatoes and peppers, and the onions need to have two or three leaves coming up out of them. From the looks of the beans and mustard, I think that they won't have any problem being large enough either! As a side note, I've been reading about people who sprout transplants and sell them as a side hustle! That sounds like a great idea, but I think I need a potting shed the next time I do this in such a big volume! It is definitely and idea worth thinking about! I 'll be sure to post about our gardening workshop after it happens! Have you done much sprouting of seeds? Let me know if you have any tried and true tips! More on Gardening:
2 Comments
2/2/2025 05:49:54 am
Such great ideas! I too love to garden, and have a lot to learn, but so far it is so much fun to experiment. But my goals are to raise more of our food. I am featuring you and this great round up of ideas at SSPS #346. Thank you for sharing with us! Melynda @scratchmadefood!
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Creators of Hot Cocoa Bombs! (copyrighted)
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Helen Reynolds: Mother of six children , grandmother to eleven! I love to cook, craft and create things and I especially love doing that with my family, So, when my lawyer daughter, Lindsey, my artist daughter, Madalynn, and I came up with the idea of Hot Cocoa Bombs, this blog was born. Then, one more daughter, with her technical and science skills, plus creativity has joined in to round us out! Read more about us here! Archives
February 2025
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