Adventures in Organic Vegetable Gardening- Planting Seeds

I decided I was going to grow my own organic fruits and vegetables when I moved into a home with a yard. I have always enjoyed gardening but never had enough green space to really get into it since I’ve lived in apartments or town homes for most of my adult life.

I started researching on the web for classes, books and blogs about vegetable gardening. I basically searched for any useful information I could find on the subject. I found a lot of information this way but not a concise step by step, this is how it’s done from beginning to end sort of thing.  I think it’s important to know what you want to actually do when you are conducting a search. This seems obvious but many times it may not be. I don’t think I knew what to search for so I started broad with just vegetable gardening then funneled down to organic vegetable gardening. After I discovered that I would have to search for vegetable gardening specific to my area, S. Florida, to get better results.

At first I thought, I’ll purchase some plants at my local big box store, plant them outside and eat the wonderful veggies they would produce. When I went to these stores, you know which ones they are, I found many plants but none organic. This came as a shock to me, how did they not carry at least a few varieties of organic vegetable plants. Then I realized that in order to grow organic vegetables everything else like the soil, the raised bed, pesticides and fertilizer has to also be, well, organic. As I discovered very few of these can be found at your local home store.

I thought I could take a class with someone knowledgeable who could guide me to where I could find all the parts for an organic garden. That is not so easy either. There are few classes available, which fill up quickly. One would think that in today’s world where there are so many groups advocating a healthy lifestyle, where eating organic is recommended, there would be many local classes available. Well I was wrong again.

Today after months of researching on-line, reading books and magazines, and taking a not so effective class,  I think  have a better idea on how to plant my organic veggie garden.

So far this is what I have learned about how to start an organic vegetable garden:

1. In order to get the best vegetables you should start with organic, non-GMO seeds. I live in Florida so I ordered my seeds from a local farm in Central Florida. The site is called Florida Backyard Vegetable Gardener .  Certain types of vegetables grow better depending on where you live or your zone. So I figured getting them close to home would be best. I didn’t find anything in my immediate area so I had them mailed (Find your Zone here)
   

   Seeds from Whole Foods and FL Backyard Gardener

   

   Herb Seeds from FBYG

   

   Whole Foods tomato seeds

    

2. The seeds need to be planted in a starter seed mix (no regular soil). I did find this at Home Depot, Jiffy Organic mix below.
   

   Organic seed starting mix

3. You can make your own seed containers out of newspaper, you can buy some at the local home store or you can even use paper cups. I went to a few places to find mine made by Jiffy, they are convenient because they will disintegrate right into the soil once the plant is ready to be transferred outside into the raised bed. The same goes for ones made out of newspaper or paper cups.
   

   Seedling pots

4. Seeds all have their own specific instructions, temperature they require for germination, depth of planting, amongst other things. The seed packets provide these instructions. Read them carefully. If not search on-line for specifics. I made a spreadsheet on when to plant the seeds with their specific instructions for quick reference. After you plant the seeds you will need to cover them with plastic wrap or use a greenhouse like the one below until they sprout
   

   Greenhouse for potted seeds to sit until they sprout- keeps moisture in

5. After seeds have sprouted then you need to place florescent lighting above them about two inches or so, for about 10-16 hours.
   

   My Small florescent lighting set up

This is as far as I have come in my vegetable gardening adventure. Other things I’ve learned are that your vegetables will grow better in a raised garden bed made from untreated wood so chemicals won’t seep into the soil and affect the plants. There are also nice vertical vegetable gardening systems which are good if you are limited in space.  Most of these things have to be ordered on-line because there aren’t an abundance of organic nurseries around, at least not in S. Florida.

Seedlings- The Broccoli didn’t fair too well

Right now I’m waiting for my seedlings to mature so that I may plant them outside. Out of 6 containers I planted seeds in only three sprouted. Out of those three only two are still alive. I am planning on planting more of them in the next week or so. I guess it’s best to plant many because they don’t all sprout. I also need a larger florescent lighting set up .

I will continue to blog on what is going on with my vegetable garden endeavors. I hope this has helped a little by giving you some insight on vegetable gardening from an amateur’s point of view.