Hiway16 Magazine... about people and places in north-central British Columbia, Canada

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Easy Bedding Plants

by Jim Easterday

Have you tried starting bedding plants before? 'Fill a cake pan with dirt, soak it with water, scatter the seed, cover it with plastic and sit it on a sunny window sill. Often, it takes weeks for all the seed to germinate (too cold). The soil always dries out too much on top and the plants grow tall, pale and weak (not enough light) until they succumb to damping off and fall over (unsterilized soil). Disappointing to say the least.

There is a better way. Let's give our seed exactly what it needs: consistent light, warmth and moisture. Here's how...

Use the hanging chains to adjust the height of the lights

The sunlight on the window sill is not enough - let's use artificial light instead. We need a four-foot long fluorescent fixture for two tubes. Get the "shop" type with hanging chains so that you can hang the light close to the plants and adjust it as the plants grow. Artificial light means that we can set up in any warm room in the house. A basement, laundry room or spare bedroom is fine, no other light is required.

The shop-type light will have a cord and plug-in. Other fixtures need to be wired by an electrician, we don't need that - we want to set up our propagation beds for only one month and then store it all away until next year. One fixture will cost about $40-.

48 hours after setup, the first broccoli sprout appears

You'll need an ordinary electric timer to control the number of hours the lights are on - the plants will need 16 hours of artificial light each day. Hang the fluorescent fixture on long chains from plant hooks in the ceiling (or something similar). You will need to have the light 6" above the trays to germinate seed and 3" above the leaves as your plants grow. Plug the fluorescent light cord into the timer and set the timer.

Next, buy two plant-grade full-spectrum fluorescent tubes for our new light fixture. Regular tubes will not provide the light that our plants need. Hardware stores stock full-spectrum tubes and the cost will be about $7- each.






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