Gardening: Seed Starting - Planting!

In my last post on gardening, I showed you our seed starting set-up. If you missed that post and you are interested in the equipment that we found helpful, go here!
One of the things that I mentioned was Jiffy seed starting disks. I really like these.

Jiffy Tomato Greenhouse - 36 count

These seed starting disks come in different sizes. Last year, we used the 72 count. The disks were smaller but you could start a lot of seeds in the tray. What I'm trying this time around is a 36 count seed starter. You will notice that it comes with every thing you need...except the water! The package for the 72 count said you would need about 10 cups of water to "hydrate" the disks. I found this to be true. The water soaked up from the bottom and the disks puffed right up. Very easy to use.

The picture above is the 36 count, after 26 cups of water! Yes the disks are larger and so you need more water. See how nicely they pop up! Now today is Friday and I started this whole process on Tuesday. This is important for you to note...

Here is my tray of 36, popped up, planted seeds. I put them right on the heating mat with the clear top on it and left it. Yesterday, I took the top off and peered in to find two surprises!

The first and most pleasant surprise was these little bits of green popping up! The one closest to me is a pea and the group in the back are broccoli! Now isn't that fast?!?!

The second and not so pleasant surprise was I saw a small amount of mold starting to grow on a "pea" disk toward the back. So what I did was take the tray and put it back on the mat without the plastic greenhouse lid and I turned the light on it.

The light will work at stopping the mold from spreading, give some light to the little green sprouts and not having the lid on will keep the plants from being too moist. That will mean that I will have to check this tray a little more often for dryness. You don't want them to dry out or drown.

One other thing about these seed starting disks...you pour the water into the tray, not on the disks. This keeps the seeds from floating away to the bottom of your tray and it causes the water to soak up from the bottom getting the moisture to where you want it..the roots. This also helps with keeping the mold from forming as well.

I really wanted to share my excitement with you about seeing the seeds popping through the dirt and showing themselves to the world!

Thanks for reading!