Has anyone started seeds indoors?

I used to. Mainly heirloom tomatoes.

But I really don't have the room, and there are SO many varieties of plants to buy nowadays, that it doesn't make sense for me to start seeds inside anymore.

Do you?

Lee

I'm starting seeds indoors this year. I've got tomatoes & peppers & some herbs germinating, along with a bunch of flowers: marigolds, nastertium, snapdragons. It's a lot cheaper buying a packet of marigold seeds than a flat of starts.

I just sow the seeds directly into the ground. I really don't have room indoors either.

We have an 8' deep pantry and one of the shelves is fitted with a grow lamp. It's a little outa sight/outa mind, but if I can remember to turn the lights on and off, and keep watering, it works pretty well.

our last frost is mid-May, normally....

so I've got leeks started but it's too early for the others.

I usually start tom, green peppers, broccoli inside - beans / peas / etc get a direct sow.

I started lettuces on the lanai last year from seeds. It worked just fine, but it's so much easier to buy plants . I don't think I'll do seeds again. This year I've already put in some herbs and I Plan to do tomatoes when I get home.

I rarely start from seeds anymore. I'll use seeds with beets, carrots, turnips and things like that. They do not transplant very well.

I did some flowers from seed because I can't find them in young plants: Forget-Me-Nots, Four O'Clocks, and Nasturtiums.

They all did well, eventually. The last two indoors in the winter and they were pretty leggy when I transplanted them. They got to be hearty plants, though.

The Forget-Me-Nots I started in a pot outside in the spring. What a lovely flower!

Lee

I always end up killing them, hard to do the "hardening off" when you have to go to work, every year I say never again and still I get spring fever and try.... and kill them.

You have to brush your hand over the indoor seedlings to mimic the breezes that they do not get indoors. Lack of light and the movement of air causes the legginess that you are complaining of. Mostly it is the lack of light.

I start pretty much everything indoors under lights. Incredibly easy & MUCH cheaper than buying starts - especially when you keep in mind that except for a few exceptions, properly stored seeds last for YEARS with very minimal decreases in viability. For instance, this year I planted endive, tomato, lettuces, peppers, & eggplants using seed that was 5, 8, & even 10 years old. Got excellent germination. So for anywhere from $.50 to $4.00 per pack (which contain dozens of seeds), I can grow for years without having to re-purchase (unless, of course, I want to try something new, which I can NEVER resist - lol!).

Setup is cheap as well. I just have several cheap fluorescent "shop lights" purchased from Lowe's suspended by cheap chains so I can start them 1" above my planted seeds & raise them as the plants grow. I've also just sat the lights on stacks of bricks on an old table, which enables me to do the same thing.

I've never done any artificial "breezes" or heating mats, or any of that stuff, & I've been raising everything & anything with absolute success - greens, beans, corn, brassicas, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, squash, cucumbers - you name it. Probably the only thing I direct-sow outside are root vegetables (although I've even started those indoors upon occasion - you just have to plant them out when still tiny & with little to no root disturbance).

Yep. I think the secret is the lighting, and doing just that: keeping the light source close to the plants. I've never heard of the artificial breeze thing and legginess. I've always heard that it was the light source. Indoor lighting from a window is just not as intense as the real thing outside, and that is what causes the legginess, the plants are trying to "go into the light," especially with the windows produced recently.

Exactly. My lights are always no further than 1" away from the top of the plants. Never have had any problems with "legginess" in more than 3 decades of indoor seed-starting.

You can sometimes get away with using those little "windowsill" seed-starting kits if you're diligent in turning the trays around every day, AND transplanting the seedlings & getting them outdoors asap. Peppers & tomatoes seem to do best in these, since they're somewhat more forgiving re: less than stellar light conditions, & bounce back admirably when planted out.

The breeze thing is from Horticulture magazine. It's more a matter of weak stems.