Why I Grow My Own Seedlings

Early in my quest for Tomatoes on Christmas Day, I found myself buying the first seedlings available at the local nursery in early Spring. Planting them out immediately and having mixed results. Some would just die, others would wilt and come back. Most early plantings didn’t do well.

I felt like a failure, but I wasn’t giving up, so I investigated. The only offerings were from commercial nurseries around sea level. Canberra and surrounds received seedlings from Sydney mostly, and if you were lucky, they may have come from Albury at 165m. 

Mimicry Does Not Guarantee Success

Since then, nurseries have popped up everywhere, but rarely at high altitude like our 700m here in Braidwood. Even the higher altitude nurseries that have popped up in recent times are just copying their sea level compatriots and growing Tomato seedlings in greenhouses. 

There are good things and some not so good things about growing in a completely artificial environment, because you are playing God, or Mother Nature, with no assistance from an ecosystem. The good part is that you can control the parameters and force perfect conditions. 

Force Feeding

Water is important for the growth of all plants. Plants generally take water in through their roots, from available water in the soil. Plants can also take in water through their leaves, like morning dew, though it is less efficient, but it does increase the total water intake improving growth.

Osmosis

Water is absorbed into the plant through the roots in a process called osmosis. The plant root is mostly water held in structure. Adjacent water molecules push against the root, become one for an instant, and move through the cell wall to nourish the plant. 

Understanding osmosis is how commercial nurseries use greenhouses to push the limits of Tomato seedling growth and other Summer vegetables. The leaves will take on water to improve growth when watered by sprinklers and if the humidity is increased enough, the growing process can be sped up. 

If the surrounding environment becomes saturated, the Tomato seedling starts to take on water by osmosis, through every cell in its being. The roots, leaves and stem become the pathway for the plant to take on water, meaning more water is taken on and more growth is witnessed faster. 

Now that the seedling has been grown rapidly and acclimatised to the high humidity, high temp environment inside a greenhouse, how do we get it safely into our variable temp, low humidity garden climate? 

Hardening Off

In this modern day of overpromising and underdelivering, the hardening off process has been moved from the greenhouse grower to the retail nursery and onto you the consumer. Have you noticed how most nurseries display their veggie seedlings under shade cloth? This is because they understand that the role of hardening off has been passed to them. 

Being displayed under shade cloth, means the tiny seedlings are still being hardened off, not quite ready for the outdoors where your garden is. Seasoned gardeners know that they must take their new seedling and give it some time on the back porch before putting it in the ground. 

The process of hardening off, after growing up in a greenhouse, is a contentious issue kept quiet by commercial greenhouse growers. Just me mentioning this will likely invite confused seedling growers to yell at me again at the next markets. I’ll try to explain it to them again, because they haven’t quite understood the logic of growing in our Unpredictable Highland Climate. It’s very different than sea level.

For a greenhouse seedling to become acclimatised to the great outdoors, the plant must first adapt the cell structure in all its leaves and stems, leaving only the roots to take on water. If this process is not complete, the water in the plant will be lost through the cell walls. It will start to dehydrate; it wilts and dies. 

It takes a lot of work to modify the cells of the plant, it takes time, energy and resources that could be better spent growing in a similar environment to your garden, more effectively. A lot of energy is spent growing in the wrong direction, quickly, before the seedling needs to be turned full circle to be ready for your outdoor garden. It works and the Tomato seedlings grow very rapidly. Great for the greenhouse owner who don’t experience any losses during the hardening off process because they pass that task and risk on. 

Not What I Need

Greenhouse seedlings may appear lush, but they couldn’t be any further from what I need in my garden and that’s why I started growing my own. In this state Tomato seedlings are vulnerable. They need to be carefully hardened off, for weeks before they can cope with the great outdoors, at sea level. Up here, they need to be hardened off very well, without putting them at risk of frost. 

Growing seedlings in a greenhouse at altitude doesn’t make much sense. The past 200 years and my own experience has shown us that it can be done without one. Some folks purchased BST Tomato seedlings last year in early Spring but waited until Tomato Cup day to plant out. They didn’t need to, but the hardening off process has become ingrained in seasoned highland gardeners. 

What Did Gran Do?

If Grandmas Grandma was growing Tomatoes to feed her family, do you think she used a greenhouse? Even at altitude, do you think she used a greenhouse? I can assure you that my Grandmas Grandma wasn’t the queen, or anyone of nobility. I guarantee you she didn’t use a greenhouse. Who could afford one then, in fact who can afford one now?

I prefer my seedlings to be grown as close to the climate I’m growing in as possible. I rely on seeds collected in my local climate, to carry important genetics to survive whatever our Unpredictable Highland Climate throws at us. I also prefer my seed chosen to produce tucker in the quickest possible time, be the best tasting and the best preforming in the wilds of Bombay. That’s how it started and it’s why we are sharing it with you.

Stay Awesome

The Gordon Gnohm