Make Your Own Seed Starting Mix: Easy and Organic

Welcome to another fun episode of "Sow It, Grow It, Cook It"! This week we talk about making your own seed-starting mix. It is inexpensive and you control what is in it! Let's uncover essential tips and tricks to help you kickstart your gardening journey with confidence.

Join us as we explore the fundamentals of seed starting, from selecting the right seeds to creating the perfect seed starting mix. Discover the differences between coconut coir and peat moss, and learn how to choose between vermiculite and perlite for optimal plant growth.

We'll also discuss common challenges gardeners face during the seed-starting process and provide practical solutions to ensure your seedlings thrive. 

Whether you're a beginner looking to grow your vegetables or a seasoned gardener seeking to refine your seed-starting skills, this episode is packed with valuable insights to help you succeed. Tune in now and unlock the secrets of seed starting for a bountiful harvest this season!

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Transcript

Sherva: Today, we're going to be talking a little about seed starting again, and also soil making your own soil started mix and potting mix. And Karen has a we posted a really simple recipe on our website, just in case anybody wants to try making their own. Because if you purchase seed starting mix, it's a little more expensive than buying potting soil mix. And it's so easy to use, you can make it really economically, you can buy from the dollar store, the little Coca Cola mix, and that usually comes out really early in January, you can add some perlite to it. And that's pretty much all you need for seed starting. Because you're really just keeping it in there until the plant grows through leaves, and then you need to transplant it and once you transplant it, then it's going to need nutrition. And you're going to need potting soil. So to me, I feel if I can save a little bit of money from that step, then I'm going to do it. Right.

Karen: I think that a lot of the seed starting mix you buy the reason it is more expensive, is because it does have soil in it. And like you said, you don't need any of that. Yeah. The little plant needs it gets from its little seed. So you don't need that until you're uploading it or transplanting it. Right. Yeah, yeah.

Sherva: I usually buy I have made some in the past, but I usually buy it. But I've come across a couple of videos because I live on YouTube. And it's just it when you're starting to see it because it doesn't need any nutrition at that time. You don't need to spend a whole lot of money. And I'm going to be using so much soil because you know, I'm going to be doing a ton of things. And I plan twice a year I start seeds in the spring and also in the fall. So you know, I'd rather just make my own and it's good to know, if I make my own I know what's in it. I know it's clean. I know I'm not gonna find any nets in it and things like that, because that's really a pain in the ass when you um, you have nets and you have your plants indoors. It's one thing for it to be outdoors but when you have it in a room in the house and there's hundreds of little gnats flying around. That's a paid you know, something I've seen though, if you do buy potting soil, if you pour hot boiling hot water on it, it would kill the nuts and then you can you let it cool down. Obviously you don't put your seeds in it when it's piping hot. But you can make your mixture or the mixture you bought at the store. The ones you buy in the store are supposed to have already been sterilized. But who knows what the sterilize and it with so you can make your own pull really hot water on it to drain it off and litical down and then you can use it and then you know there's no danger of gnats because they would have killed it and any eggs now

Karen: I have to confess I have knots in your house and I I just can't seem to get rid of them. I bought these little sticky stick things you stick in your pot. Yeah, Belinda has those Yeah, I just I don't know. So I would do I wish I had known that I would have tried to sterilizing the soil to begin with.

Sherva: Oh yeah, and I definitely wouldn't recommend going in your backyard and digging up some soil to bring in your house to start seeds definitely not because you'll be bringing in all sorts of insects and eggs that even if it's not alive insects, you know there's probably eggs in there that will turn into an insect and you'll you have that all over your house so you know make your own or if you do buy it at some boiling hot water to it let it cool down and then use it now

Karen: I also I got some coconut core from amazon it the price wasn't as good quite as good as Dollar Tree but if they're out by the time you get there, that was a good option. Now do you soak and rinse the coconut core sure because some people say to do that I haven't rinsed it in the past but I'm going to now I'm going to this time because I didn't know it had all the chemicals on it. I didn't know it had all that stuff on it right so a couple of videos I saw they would make it and then they rinsed it in a colander and then waited for that to dry out and then used it so I'm feeling lately like it's probably a good idea with anything to not assume there's nothing in it. I think that you know a lot of people throughout time have made made their own. I think we've just become accustomed to a lot more convenience in the 20th century and the 21st century so we buy a lot of stuff that maybe we could make ourselves and I think it's a good it's a good thing to know how to do if you're in a situation where you don't have access to those things. You know, because we had covered that topic before about how people throw a good situation or not there are people now being the US are experiencing that with the supply chain issues so it's a good thing to know how to make it yourself.

Sherva: Right, I think that a lot of people have kind of lost that knowledge. You know, you hear stories of older people who lived through the depression and things like that and they were very resourceful because they had to be and nowadays people just go to the store and buy everything and you don't really think about it you don't really think about the fact that you can make this stuff yourself and it's really not that hard.

Karen: I guess it just depends on your confidence level but I think you can do it all I do it I know I can do it all you can definitely do it all right so we hope you give that a try. And I think that's all we have for today.

Sherva: Alright, take care.

[Outro]

Karen: Bye.