Growing Vegetable Transplants with the Best Seed Starting Mix

Growing Vegetable Transplants

When choosing to grow your own vegetable transplants there are many benefits that can improve your vegetable garden. The first benefit is it can be cheaper to buy than paying around three to five dollars a plant from big-box stores. Another benefit is choosing your own varieties that you would like to personally plant instead of just planting what the store has offered. Thirdly it allows you to get a jump start on the growing season. When transplanting vegetables in the greenhouse you are ahead of the growing season which allows for the plants to be ready to go in the garden as soon as the weather conditions are suitable. For example, if you plan on growing warm weather crops like watermelons or okra. Instead of waiting for soil temps to warm up for seed planting, you can go ahead and plant these crops into our seed starting tray which allows them to be ready to go in the garden when the weather conditions are just right. Lastly, the best benefit of them all is growing healthier plants in the greenhouse and vegetable garden.

Best Seed Starting Mix

On this week's episode, Travis explains the importance of growing your own vegetable transplants with the best seed starting mix. The most important step in growing vegetable transplants is finding the proper seed starting mix to accommodate those transplants. There is a difference between seed starting mix and potting mix when it comes to planting transplants. The potting mix tends to be more chunky and contain pieces of sticks/barks in them. Also not as light or airy like seed starting mix. For seed starting mix we are looking for fine not chunky that allows the roots to wrap around the soil. When the roots wrap around the soil this helps establish a great root ball for when we go to transplant the plants in the ground. The best seed starting mix that Travis recommends is the Pro-Mix Seed Starting Mix. He has trialed this mix versus other mixes for several years and this Pro-Mix has always performed the best for growing vegetable transplants. This Pro-Mix is OMRI listed for organic vegetable production. It contains a lightweight mixture that has a nice consistency and contains plenty of perlites. These white stones of perlite are important when growing your own vegetable transplants because they will help improve airflow and drainage of the plant roots. Another advantage of this Pro-Mix is it includes MycoActive which promotes mycorrhizal associations. Mycorrhizal associations are a symbiotic relationship between fungi and plants which provide benefits to the growing plants. The fungi provide absorption ability for the plant roots, while the plant roots provide food or glucose to the fungi. This Pro-Mix bag contains 16 quarts which are sufficient for two seed starting trays. Our seed starting trays each have 162 cells with internal vertical root training ribs that help with root ball drainage and aeration as well. A nice root ball drainage will help reduce transplant shock and bacterial/fungal diseases which allows improved healthier and productive plants. This seed starting Pro-Mix works great for any of the nightshade family crops like tomatoes, eggplants, or peppers. Also, works great for growing vegetable transplants like broccoli, cabbage, kohlrabi, or kale. Some flower transplants to such as sunflowers, zinnias, or celosia. When looking to grow your own transplants choose the right seed starting mix like Pro-Mix instead of using regular potting mixes from the store. This seed starting mix will ensure healthier vegetable transplants and improve better performance when moving them from the greenhouse to the outside garden area.