Hi, I just joined today and I'm so glad I found this forum! I've used many different methods to start seeds in- the best so far, and one that I've been using for a couple years is soil blocks. You can purchase them at Johnny's or Territorial Seed. They are really great for plants that benefit from being 'potted on' a few times before going to their permanent home- like tomatoes. They are great for seeds that hate their roots disturbed- you know the ones some stay away from because the packet says direct sow and then you forget about them. They are great for seeds that take forever to germinate! There are 3 that you can buy. You start your really small seeds or ones that take forever to germinate in the micro soil block maker. After they germinate and have grown for about 5-7 days, you 'up-block' them to the next size soil block- the 2" sized. The 2" soil block maker comes with inserts that you put in and when you make them it leaves a square hole in the top that is the same size as the micro soil block! Then there is the 4". You move your plants to it from the 2" the same way. These are nice for a few different reasons- but the most important is that the roots get naturally air pruned when they grow to the edge of the soil block, they stop. They don't have anything to wrap around like a pot. Because of this, when you plant them in the ground they take off! Little to no transplant shock. I have built simple wooden trays to hold them- one side open. These make it easier to water. If you go to my blog (in my profile) read the posts about these- directions are in there including a small video and how to build the wooden flats. If you have any questions about these you can email me. Happy Gardening! Tessa (aka dirtdigr) Here is a link that might be useful: Blunders with shoots, blossoms 'n roots

ProMix BX has been my choice as a soil-less growing medium for some years now. Good results for seed germination and growing seedlings on in pots until ready for permanent site. (May take a year or so for me to get all my pots planted.) This year I added fine sand to the ProMix to start rock garden plants and alpines. Other normal garden seeds were sown in this mix. Germination results just as good. There is also a growing medium sold by the bale at Home Depot caled BM1. I have used this product when ProMix was not available adding vermiculite and perlite as required because the BM1 has more peat than the ProMix BX bale. The cost of either bales is around $25.00 to $30.00 Canadian. This mix can also be used with potting soil for use in hanging baskets, deck pots, etc. Buying by the compressed bale is practical and cost worthy. Besides selected nurseries I have found ProMix BX at farm Feed & Supply Stores.

DWD2, thank you for posting your methodology. It always good to see how others grow their seeds and compare methods. I have grown my own starts (36+ tomato varieties) for the past 5 years. Before last year, I had not had too many plant health problems, except for the first year when my light system was not close enough to my plants. In that year I had problems with leggyness. I strongly suspect that my problem last year was the seed starter mix, but it could have been a few other things. I may have introduced disease into the first batch by incorporating compost into the mix. I think this is unlikely because in other batches and other treys I did not use compost in the mix but still had the same problems. Also, once the plants were in the ground they recovered and grew well the rest of the summer. If it were a disease I would have expected that the plants would still have had problems after planting, which they did not. Tomatoes are really amazing in what they can take early on and still produce well. For example, I had a mouse eat all the leaves of two plants shortley after they were in the ground. There were only stems left and I thought they were done, but I did not pull them out. Both plants sprouted new leaves again and became bushy healthy plants. I was astounded. I have had others suggest that with an approximately 50/50 mix of vermiculite and peat, I may have had water retention problems that suffocated the roots. Thats possible, but I was pretty careful about my watering. I can't totally rule that out. It may also have been too many nutrients from a dilute solution of fertilizer at watering as the problems occured shortly after that. I have read that new seedlings don't need many nutrients becuase they get what they need from the seeds/cotyledons. Some have even suggested that you will cause more problems by fertilizing than just not fertilizing. The reason why I fertilized is because we had a number of storms in May that pushed my planting date back 3-4 weeks longer than our average frost date. So I fertilized a little. I may also have had root binding problems. There is another possiblity which DWD2 suggested. I used a seed heating matt for the first time last year and most of the tomatoes had it under them for at least a day. So I may have over-heated the soil a little and damaged the roots. However on the last seed trey that got started late, I did not use the heat matt because I suspected it may have caused the problems. Yet I still had the same problems in the last trey. My strongest suspicion is still the starter mix. I have read the ingredient list on several seed starting mixes. In most cases, they usually contain peat (as the main medium plus it has high cation exchange capacity) + vermiculite (for micro nutrient exchange and water retention) + lime (to balance the PH of the peat). They sometimes include perilite, but sometimes not (example Jiffy), they also sometimes include a few other things (mycorrhizae for example or a source of nutrients). The main ingredient that I was missing that most starter mixes have is lime for ph balance. I could not find lime in any stores in Utah at the time. They do sell it here, but it is not a common soil amendment in Utah because most Utah soils are slightly alkaline (PH 7.8-8.2). So most folks would not want to add lime. This year I am interested to try mixing my own starter again but I wanted actual recipies to get an idea of the right proportions to use. Also I had no idea that mycorrhizae was available so I am defintley going to use that in my mix. Alternatively I could just buy a pre-made starter mix, but I wanted to save money and its a learning experience as well.

It's ok as long as you follow directions for planting depth. Just tamp the mix onto your pot - lightly, just to firm it up. Water it to help it settle. Poke a hole with a pencil tip or toothpick of the proper depth. If instructions are to "lightly cover", just lay the seed directly on top of the medium and then crumble some medium over the top (or do the same with fine vermiculite) and very gently firm that. A dampened toothpick can be used to pick up very fine seed one at a time. Can't help with the wet paper towel thing. If I want to do that, I start in fine vermiculite in a flat and prick seedlings out. BOTTOM WATER or very fine mist to watet fine seeds, BTW, so you don't wash them deeper into the medium by accident.