How to Plant Garden Vegetable Seeds...Simple...Awesome and Effective!

hey there folks this is Josh Stoney Ridge farmer welcome to the farm vlog today today is the day we're going to be starting our seeds on the farm for our garden and we use these little jiffy greenhouse gardens they work perfectly I'm going to show you how to use them in today's video so come along with me as we learn how to plant our garden seeds in the little jiffy greenhouse peat bugs all right folks if this is your first time to the channel welcome welcome to the channel welcome to the Stoney Ridge farm we're here on 200 acres situated in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina it's a beautiful sunset here and what a perfect time to show you how to plant your seeds we are about two weeks too late to get our seeds into the peat pots and we're about two weeks away from when we can put our seeds in the ground so this morning we had a frost and it's about 75 degrees right now we'll probably have another frost in the morning so let's get started let's first show you what we have we have the 72 buck peat hook pack and the 36 buck greenhouse basically that's what they call these so the peat pucks are basically peat moss in a little puck like a hockey puck inside of a little bag and this is where you put your seed so if you're like me I'm normally an early bird I'm normally planting my seeds a little bit earlier in the year but this year we got a little bit behind it's still not too late to plant your seeds if you're just now watching this video so this is a half a gallon of lukewarm water it's not moonshine we're going to pour it right over top of our little peat pods and you can do this indoors outdoors it doesn't make a mess it's very simple very easy you do need a fairly level surface and the truck is kind of parked on a hill this is by the way our 1978 Ford known as the hundred dollar pickup truck we paid a hundred bucks for this truck awesome you don't want to go dumping this in really fast but it doesn't matter so much so we're gonna just pour the entire half gallon and it doesn't matter if it's a 36 or a 72 it'll still take the full half gallon of warm water and we'll just go in and pour the whole half gallon in here and let those peat pods start to expanding you'll see them they're starting to grow already right over here we will pour it all in here I'm kind of going slow because I'm on an angle right here and it's raising up a little bit so we give this somewhere in the neighborhood of fifteen minutes or so you can press them down in there if you like it doesn't really matter the only thing you really have to watch is when you pour your water in not to pour it into one of the little ends once it's already swelled up because it will wash out from that end right there it will wash that peat moss out you don't have to fertilize these you don't have to do anything you just let them swell up put your seeds in let them grow and put them in your garden pretty cool let's give them a few minutes and watch them swell so the reason we use lukewarm water to get these to swell up and grow up to their full size it's because it makes them go quicker if you put cold water in there it's just the same I will tell you this don't put city water don't put that city water put water that's not chlorinated if you don't have water that's not chlorinated go to the grocery store and buy a couple gallons of distilled water it's cheap enough to get your seeds started ok I think it's pretty amazing that you start off with something about this big and then it swells up to something this big isn't that cool so this was twice the size of that before that's awesome so let's talk about the kinds of plants you want to put in these peat books to get started in your garden what you don't want to put in there is zucchini and green beans and watermelon stuff with big seeds sugar snap peas squash you don't want to put those in these peat pods because you really don't need to do that you're just wait until the soil temperature is about sixty degrees and you can put these seeds directly in the ground and they'll sprout up and do just fine what you're trying to do here is get a head start on your gardening and you want to plant the delicates the delicate plants such as your Tomatoes so we were going to plant all of our Tomatoes today and we're not going to do all of them right here in front of you but will tell you the varieties that we're using we're using the big boy we're using a Roma tomato we're using a another Roma tomato and cherry tomatoes because we like those in our salad so that's what we'll be planning in here and we'll also be planting cilantro parsley and dill these little tiny seeds are the ones you need to baby you need to baby them in the peat pots the big seeds you can put directly in your garden most of the time so the easiest way to do this and you need to label whatever you do you need to label so get yourself a piece of masking tape and put it on the side here and label what you plant because you certainly don't want to forget what you planted so write it on the side of this little box I've got six rows of cherry tomatoes I've got four rows of Roma tomatoes so you want to write that down on a little piece of tape just run a piece of tape all the way across and you can draw little lines as to what you have planted in here it's very important to keep records because you will find out you're planting the wrong tomato in the wrong spot I've done it guys so what you basically do is tear into your little tomato seed packet very simply pour out some seeds in your hand better to do this indoors without the wind as a factor and you want to take one of your little peat pods and this is what you're going to do with each one get yourself a little lead pencil a chopstick an ink pen anything and you want to poke a tiny hole right in there and you want that hole to be somewhere in the neighborhood of about a quarter of an inch deep it doesn't have to be very deep then you want to take your little seed and I like to put two seeds per pod and you just drop your little seed in there you may not even see them and then take your finger and cover it up so systematically I'll show you how I do it so I systematically go and I poke holes in each one of these all the way through until I get done and then I systematically take a seed and put in each one two seeds in each little puck and that way I'm ensured germination if I get three seeds in there it's fine you really don't want one seed later on when they come up you'll pick the healthiest ones to keep and you'll take some little scissors and trim off the little guys that you don't want to keep and that way you have one plant per puck per pod in about three weeks these guys will probably be about that high now for small seeds like lettuce and dill basically a good rule of thumb is to planting depth needs to be about twice the size of the seed so you've really got to watch and not bury your seed too deep that's why with these little seeds you need to go on and put them in a peat pot get them started first and then transplant them once they're grown-up enough to put into the garden you can get a good head start on your garden like this so as you guys can see I've got my hands full I've got a lot of seeds to get planted tonight I'm gonna sit on my couch watch a little TV plant my little seeds and then I'm gonna put them on a little storage rack in the window or by my sliding glass door now you want to be careful once these guys have sprouted to take this clear lens off because this will turn into a magnifying glass and it could hurt your little plants you want to be careful when you first expose them to Sun don't expose them to full hot Sun in the middle of the day when you first bring them outside you want to be slow with it you want to be gentle you want to put them in the shade first and slowly move them to full Sun just because the plants take full Sun when they're full-grown doesn't mean they take full Sun when they're little bitty babies folks I hope you've learned a whole lot with this little video today I hope you've learned how to use these little peak bucks I hope this has inspired you to get out and plant your own garden you don't need a big spot to grow a plenty of tomatoes for you to have for salads or cheeseburgers or whatever it is you want so get out there get in the garden get your hands dirty have some fun I thank you so much please pound that like button subscribe to the channel if you're not already subscribing come on back and see me here on the Stoney Ridge farm all right [Music] Pierce we had some ways those Denise Tony Reed one further quick tip for you guys save your packages write down what you do write down what you plant because if you don't like it this year ya ain't gonna like it next year and you want to make a note and if you do like it you want to get the same seeds next year cool such a beautiful sunset back here that's the garden come back for more garden plan it's gonna be a good year