Planting Celery Seeds...

Friday afternoon I got down to the business of planting celery seeds. I have never grown celery before, but I do use a lot of it. I am planning to plant the celery in my kitchen garden which is right outside my back door. For the third year in a row I am starting my own seeds. I will also be starting pepper seeds, tomato seeds, cabbage seeds, broccoli seeds and probably watermelon seeds. When I started gardening I bought plants from the nursery. I even bought plants from Wal-Mart. I would encourage anyone who is beginning to garden to buy seedlings from a store. I have also purchased seedlings from Seed Savers Exchange, but this is quite spendy. Here is a look at how I like to start seeds.

I assembled all of my supplies: peat pellets, heat mat, tray with dome lid, warm water, seeds and a toothpick. I purchased these peat pellets at Lowe's last year. I am sure all the home and garden stores are now stocking their seed starting paraphernalia.

This heat mat was purchased from Harris Seeds. It really helps raise the temperature which is often needed for germination. My mat does not have a regulator. I just plug it in to turn it on and unplug it to turn it off.

These trays were purchased from Johnny's Select Seeds several years ago. I reuse them every year. They do need to be washed with a 10% bleach solution before they are reused just to be sure that they are not harboring any diseases.

Carolyn lined up 15 peat pellets in the tray. She loves to help me with my projects.

Then we poured a couple cups of warm tap water on them and waited for the pellets to absorb the water.

After all the water is absorbed and each pellet looks saturated, I fluff up the peat soil with a toothpick. Then we planted 3 seeds per pellet. Usually I put in 2 seeds, but I just wanted to be sure. So, we put in 3.

I covered the seeds lightly with soil, plugged in my heat mat, and now they are working on germinating. It can take celery seeds up to 3 weeks to germinate. Tomato and peppers seeds are much quicker.