Growing Vegetables from Seedlings Part 2

Storebought Greenhouse Experiment: Jiffy vs. Burpee Greenhouse Kits
Part 2: Burpee Seed Starting 72 Cell Greenhouse Kit

Previously on Winter Seed Starting, I made a fluorescent light hanger and started a flat of spring vegetables with a Jiffy Greenhouse Kit.

Being new to vegetable gardening from seed, I'm testing out two types of indoor greenhouse kits. This article is about the Burpee Greenhouse Kit.

72 slots for seedlings may seem like a lot, but my garden will eat it up.
I'll probably need 3-4 of these kits to fill up the entire space.

The greenhouse parts include:

(L-R)Plastic clear dome, 2 trays of plant cells (72 total), 72 "Burpee Super Growing Pellets" (inside trays), 1 growing tray, with 2 "plant-o-grams" inside that.

The "plant-o-grams" I assume are the paper inserts and basically I thought they were useless so I tossed them.

I use throwaway wood tongue depressors to write my plant names on. If you use a sharpie, they can get wet without the ink running. The paper will just get wet and indecipherable. The wood will last much longer.

The instructions are simple enough. The greenhouse includes the soil you need and a tray to keep it in. You provide seeds, water, and light.

The most important step in putting together the greenhouse is arranging the pellets.

They must be flat-side down in the cell or the pellet won't expand properly. It will make a mess instead.

See the picture on the left as an example of what to do.

Top left of this picture I tried to show how much water to add.



The pellet absorbs the water fast, but you should only need to fill 3/4 of the cell to fully expand the pellet.

Even if you carefully add water, the pellets won't expand evenly.



You can see on the picture above that the peat moss will get everywhere if you're not careful.

After all the pellets have expanded, use a tool like a plastic spoon or tongue depressor to spread out the peat moss in each cell.

Once all the peat moss is spread out, time to pick out your seeds of choice.

Clockwise from top left: Brussel Sprouts, San Marzano Tomatoes, Beets, Peas, Green Beans, Kale.

I placed 1-3 seeds on each cell, on top of the peat moss where I could see it clearly. I wanted to make sure I actually put seeds on every cell.



After that, I followed the directions on each seed packet for how deep to plant the seeds.

The peas and green beans need to be planted at 2 in, which barely fit in the peat moss. We'll see if they come up right.

After burying all the seeds, sprinkle carefully with some more water to dampen it.

You don't want to accidentally drench the seeds and wash them out of the cells!

Then place the plastic dome on top and place outside of direct sunlight in a warm area. I have mine under a fluorescent light.



Part 3: Jiffy Greenhouse Update