Coming from a more Northern country I was used to start my seeds in pots on the windowsill before finally putting plants outside in the garden. I’ve tried it here as well but, lacking windowsills in this French-built house, it’s become a bit complicated and not altogether successful.
I bought a grow light and rigged up a plant nursery on the floor in the unheated guestroom, running up and down morning and night to moisten the earth. The seeds sprout and grow a bit but the grow light is not enough for them to thrive or keep them from getting leggy. They need natural light.
Then comes spring. The days grow warm, the sun is already hot in the middle of the day, but the nights are still too cold to plant outside – even if the plants were big enough by then. So they either have to be shuttled back and forth twice a day or be put in a small plastic “greenhouse” to protect them during the night. However the greenhouse quickly becomes a sauna during the day and has to be openend and closed continually – and to be tied down somehow so the wind doesn’t blow it away.
Lots of effort for not much return because young seedlings don’t like this constant change in temperatures and most have trouble rooting when finally being planted outside. None of them ever did really well – compared with the ones that either sowed themselves or that were later sown directly in the earth. The bunches of spinach I discovered in the garden this spring were five times as big and as lush as the tiny little “winter spinach” I had painstakingly planted in the veggie beds. Big and juicy self-seeded New Zealand spinach grew all around the garden in May. And I’ve never had hollyhocks as big and healthy as the ones that keep sowing themselves each year.
Sowing and cultivating seedlings in pots might be easier and more successful in a real greenhouse, but seeing how rarely we have freezes and how hot it gets in the summer it’s not worth the expense and space needed. Maybe one day, if the old shed breaks down. But for now I will sow directly and trust that seeds will survive in the earth until time and temperatures are right for them to come out and do their thing. And I will just buy professionally grown plants to supplement what I’ve sown.
See also the article “And lead us not into temptation”.
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