Im sure there are more knowledgeable people to answer you than myself here. But I dont want not to respond and have you daunted by growing from seed. There are some simple items you need to start most anything from seed. Light , Soil , Heat and water. Alot of people create their own light set up due to lack of space for southern facing exposure. I have one shoplight I converted into a plug in one. However, the majority of seeds I sow inside just have southwest exposure for the day somewhere in the vicinty of 8 hours or so of light. It seems to do fine enough for most of my plants. Soil, Ive used alot of mixes. You can go pick up a bag of promix at homedepot or your local feed/hardware stores. This will work fine for the most part. Ive used cheap top soil before and I still got OK results. warning though, top soil seems to clump up and increase fungas, I DONT reccomend using it, just saying I have and I got some germination from most of the seeds. Heat, I have a seed heat mat, which increases the time and growth of most plants. However, ive sown without this as well in a fairly cold room and got OK results. Alot of people here do not like OK results they want above average to great results. They set up thier equipment/soils to achieve this result. However DO not be overwhelmed, take some cheap seed trays fill them with something like promix, set them up in front of a window in a well heated room and you will GET some germination from MOST plants. If you were more courageos than I was this year you can sow some vegatables using winter sowing method. I have not , I did start alot of Perrenial seeds this way though and am exited to see what results I will get.

Hi, I'm a new member and I live in Oxfordshire, England. I have been growing Malabar Spinach (Basella Alba)the green stemmed version for about 20 years. In early April, I soak seeds overnight in lukewarm water, then sow them in a seed compost and put it into a heated propagator (70F). They'll take from 3 weeks to sometime in Summer! I prick out those that have germinated, but still keep the pot of seeds in the propagator until mid-May, more might germinate. I then pot them on into a 4' long by 10" tall tub and grow them on in an unheated greenhouse until mid-June. After that the tub goes on the patio through the summer. When the day length gets shorter, I pot a plant up and bring it into the house (mid Sep?) and I collect seeds from that plant in Spring the next year and so on..

~freshair, I just cut a top shoot from a growing plant, about 5-6 inches long, pinch out the growing tip, then remove the leaves on the last one or two leaf nodes nearest the bottom of the cutting. I dip the end going into the potting mix in rooting powder or clonex so that it covers a leaf node going into the potting mix (I'm not certain this is really necessary on this particular plant but couldn't hurt), then stick the cutting into a light dampened mix of Promix (brand name) potting mix and perlite, about 50-50. I've also just stuck the shoots into a small pot of dampened Promix (or any good quality, light potting mix). If there are large leaves on the shoot, either cut the leaves in half or pinch off some of them so the cutting doesn't lose a lot of moisture via the leaf surface. Now set a top half of a 2 liter plastic cola bottle (minus the cap) down over the pot and put them in the shade. Don't let the cuttings dry out. In a week or so you will notice new growth at the exposed leaf node. It is rare for me to have a cutting fail so I figure they are super easy. I mist the cuttings when I think about it but keeping them in the shade until they begin to put out new leaves is very important. Before I had a big butterfly enclosure to raise the little cats in, I'd take shoots from a growing MW, stick them into a block of moistened florist foam and use the MW that way to feed the little cats. They would eat those MW shoots right down to a stalk, even eating part of the stalk. If there were at least two leaf nodes left, I'd stick the lowest leaf node down into potting mix and almost everytime, it would root and grow new leaves from the exposed top leaf node. I've got some pots on my deck right now that have five or six little MW plants in each pot that were started this way. This variety of MW must have some good, strong genes! Give it a try and I think you'll find it very easy to multiply your tropical MW this way. I feel it is probably quicker than starting from seed. I have some tropical MW seed I planted a month ago and there are only two sets of true leaves on these little plants right now. Mary

Thanks for the tips. Maybe my eyes aren't the greatest - and I'm not experienced about what to look for - but even with 3x-5x magnifiers can't see anything obvious. Nothing moving. These plants always have seemed a bit milky-sappy-stringy, so the whitish fuzz under the leaves doesn't seem out of place. There are small dark gray-ish (or light blackish) spots under some of the leaves. Not sure if that could just be sprinkling of the potting mix, or really tiny sessile parasites or fungus. In the lower left of this post's photo the small topmost new leaves (left of previous posting photo) have died off. The rest are just underside views of leaves, which don't seem remarkable. ...might have to think about re-starting from seeds.