Starting Seedlings Outdoors

Who has started seedlings outdoors? in what kind of climate were they in? Did you moist them with anything special to keep the insects away? Thoughts...?

Haven't tried it myself but to protect them you could use a bottle of water with an opening on top, it will also help with the humidity. Good luck.

bump and thanks lince i never thought of that. this thread is pretty relevant to me too.

where im at i dont have to worry about the insects getting them its the deer lol

Are you transplanting them or sowing them directly in the ground?

Its best to start them in cups of soil. And protect them from bugs by keeping them in a box or tub. You can also spray them with sevin, a bug repellent.

When they are a few inches tall and can stand up on their own go ahead and plant them in the ground.

Mine are doing great atm...they were started in a plastic tray with a dome. I think the tray was meant for those little "rapid rooters" or whatever, it has these little 1" or so holes in it that I filled with dirt (happy frog). The seeds were poked a half inch or so into the dirt, soaked with water, and covered with a dome. I leave the dome on at night and remove it during the day, to let the condensation dry off of the inside of it. I pour some more water on them when the dirt starts lookin dry. Out of habit, I ph the wellwater to 5.8-6.4, but I kinda think that for sprouting seeds, it doesn't really matter, they just want to be wet.

The tray was placed in a little hoophouse, along with some small plants that were vegged inside a little bit. I got instructions for building the hoophouse on youtube. It's real simple, and I spent zero dollars on it, as I had PVC, rebar and plastic laying around the yard from past projects.

When I'm pretty sure the frosts are past, I'll take em the rest of the way outside and plant em. I have a "Mr Heater" propane heater in the hoop, to be used on the coldest of cold nights, but as long as the temps have been mid-high 40's or higher, the babies have been fine without it.

This has worked great for me so far...hope this helps.