1/16/2024
Last week, on the 9th of January, we started the first bunch of spring flowers from seed. Linda had some Zinnia seeds from Park Seeds leftover from last year, so we thought it was time to put them to good use.
We also started some pollinator plants, but they haven’t come up yet.
Late last year, we had purchased a Gardener’s Supply Company Self Watering Seed Starting Kit (paid link) as well as a Burpee Self-Watering Seed Starter Tray, 72 Cell Kit (paid link). The idea was to try each one out and decide which on we like the best and go from there.
They both have advantages and disadvantages.
Gardener’s Supply:
Advantages
- Constructed from heavy duty material. Meant to last more than one season
- The self-watering mat is very thick – I hope this means it will transport water better.
- The individual cells are big enough to easily start and divide if needed 2 or more plants
Disadvantages
- Cost. Not very budget friendly for some folks.
- Only 24 cells
Burpee:
Advantages
- Budget friendly
- Large number of cells Seventy-two cells in the one featured. Thirty-six cell kits (paid link) are available.
Disadvantages
- The cells are small. Doable to work with, nonetheless small.
- The material seems a little flimsy. Makes me wonder how long the kit will last.
- The self-watering mat seems to be thin. I hope it works well.
I don’t have any real winners or losers. Time will tell.
Surprise!
As we finished up the Zinnias, we noticed that some of the lavender we had tried to start from cuttings seemed to have some signs of life.
The pictures aren’t very good. They do seem to be growing, maybe??
As a recap, last fall – just hours before the first hard frost – I read an article about starting lavender plants from cuttings. I went out and even though the plants were done for the season made 20 or so cuttings and dipped the cuttings in a root stimulant placed in some potting soil (paid link), and put under the sunlamp.
Other than watering them, when remembering to do so, we hadn’t really paid much attention to them.
So fast forwarding back to last week, we saw that around 10, or so, were still kind of green. This prompted some fast transplanting. At this point don’t really have an idea if any will live, but it has been a good experiment.
Redoing an used seed starting kit
In 2022, I think, we purchased our first a Burpee Self-Watering Seed Starter Tray, 72 Cell Kit (paid link) and promptly lost the tray stands and the self watering mat. We used what we had left, but had decided to get what we needed to be able to fully use this kit.
I found a Burpee Self-Watering Seed Kit Replacement Mat, fairly easily but couldn’t find a replacement for the plant stands. So I went to Tinkercad and made something that should work. I printed out the prototype the next day and it was a little small.
With that knowledge, using the Cura slicer, I made it big enough to work. The video below is the stand printing (just 15 seconds worth).
Next time we start seeds
Next time we start seeds we plan on using the above kit as well as some the new items below:
In case you didn’t know, if you click and and buy from any of the paid links, it won’t cost you anymore and I might actually get a very, very small commission.
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