The Joys and Trials of Caring for your Seedlings

Ive been busy getting the garden ready for planting, pruning my flower bushes, and taking care of my little seedlings. I'm here to tell you that caring for hatching seeds is as time consuming as real little babies. Goodness, what a lot of work for one tiny little seed.

Now I encourage everyone to try and grow a little garden. If you don't have the room at least grow a patio pot. There is nothing like watching things grow from the soil and eating the fruit right off the plant. But I am afraid novice gardeners are in for a little surprise when they discover that gardening isn't all romance.

The picture in ones mind of gardening is that of putting little seeds into pots with fresh soil and then giving the precious things a little drink of water while whispering sweet love words to make them grow. You dream of the day when they will find a space in your garden plot and grow into lovely fruit bearing plants. You will pick the vegetables from the vine and take them to the table being sure to stop by your gorgeous herb bed for a few herbs to add to that salad you're dreaming of.

But lets back up and take a closer look at those darling seeds. By now most of you who are going to start seedlings have already done so and are hopefully seeing the rewards of all your labor. On the other hand you will know that not every one of your seeds and pots did exactly what you asked of them nor was starting the seeds the little romantic time you thought it would be.

By now you will know that those little seeds all need handled differently. Some will need to be soaked before planting, others will need to be nicked with a knife to encourage them to sprout, others will have to be frozen, while still others can go directly into the soil without any torture at all to their poor little selves.

Unfortunately after spending all that time there is no guarantee that the dear little seeds will even sprout. Some of them are slow bloomers and others are just plain duds. You watch and wait and nothing comes from those dear little pots you worked so hard on.

Some will need to be left 6 to 8 days to germinate. Some will need to to be left 2 weeks. No matter how long it takes you will find the experience exhausting. The gardener will spend many anxious moments peeking into those little trays to see whats happening under that lid. Do the little plants have enough water? Do they have too much water? Is there enough light? Is there too little light? What exactly is indirect sunlight?

And then there are the dreaded diseases that seedlings are prone to get. What about that dampening off that no gardener is above finding in her own pots, or that mold that forms under the little biospheres you have so lovingly made for the little things. Worse yet the slime!

Too much water will cause mildew and fungus, not enough water and your babies wont sprout. The books all say to spray the seeds with a water spritzer thingy. Better yet water from underneath but for mercy sake do not let those pots stand in water. The exact amount of wetness is positively necessary for the seeds to sprout.

As important as the water is the sunlight. Some seeds need to be kept in the dark until they sprout. Others need sunlight. Some need indirect sunlight and then what happens when two seeds out of 20 pop up through the soil? Now its time to put those two into direct sunlight but the other 18 have to stay out of the light? What are you going to do since you planted them in those cute little cups that come in a tray all connected to each other?

And to make matters worse you really don't have a window in the house that faces south and gets the direct sunlight. You decide to go buy the grow lights but now you have to make sure that they are positioned the right amount of space between plants and light; too close and they'll burn, too far away and the seeds will be starved for light.

And when do you decide that the seed just isn't going to come up and its time to replant that particular pot? Its about now that you really regret throwing out the little package that the seeds came in. At least they gave you a vague idea of when they were suppose to germinate. Of course all seasoned gardeners know not to put too much stock in that but its better than nothing.
Now once your little seeds do sprout you have to make sure they get gobs of light or the dear little things grow long and leggy looking for that much needed sunshine. Some of them have leaves spaced wide apart. Some just die abruptly giving you no time to grieve their slow decline or prepare yourself for their death. Others turn yellow. Some come through the soil but stay curled in a little ball until the tiny green thing just rots right there in its little dirt grave. At least those kind give you time to mourn their death.

You will find yourself spending hours of time with these little things at this stage. You will move them from window to window in search of the best light. Just when you think you have found it the sun has moved and the entire tray of plants is now in speckled light. Panic sets in because the package definitely says they need direct sunlight. So you move them again.

Many times you will return to find them all with their little faces turned toward mecca with their leaves folded up as if in prayer. You painstakingly turn every tray around so the plants can straighten themselves up as the turn the other way ever reaching for the elusive light.

Finally the survivors are ready for the garden and you must begin the hardening off process. This is a step that you must not skip. Theres no other way around it then to haul every little tray outside in the morning and bring them all in at night, back and forth, back and forth until your arms ache and you are more than ready to get rid of those babies and set them loose in the big bed outside.

When you finally are able to put them out in the garden you are more than aware of the dangers lurking there. Its traumatic to set your babies out in the big outdoors knowing that cutworms and slugsand a myriad of other creatures await their tender stems.

And while its hard on you its even harder on the babies. They wilt and hang their heads, folding in their leaves and withdrawing into themselves in an attempt to show you how unhappy they are. Some of them actually meet their demise under your garden boots as you lift them from their little tray beds and accidentally drop them on their fragile heads.

You fret over them and tap the earth in around them and try not to think about the 90 degree sun that will hit them this summer and the drenching rain that will drown them in the summer thunderstorms that are sure to come. And you try to forget abut the winds that are capable of leveling your entire corn field in one huge whoof! Ya'all remember how that happened to me last year?

Yes, its hard to set your babies free but now at least you can get a little break indoors. For the first couple of days you will keep a close watch over your little ones and the house will feel empty without them, but never fear by the end of the harvest you will never want to see those plants again. You will gladly drag them out of the earth by their ear and throw them into the recycle bin! You will be more than glad to plow the last of them under for next years compost.

It may be hard to believe at this point but trust me, I know. Now go and take care of your babies and enjoy them while they are young. I sure hope I didnt discourage anyone from starting their own seeds or from gardening period! But someone has to tell the real story and it may as well be me! Like I said at the beginning though, a garden is a good thing ...and I stand by that.