A Gardeners Forum Forums Gardening Reference Gardening in 2006 Newbie trying to plant seeds.

I am pretty new to planting seeds. I have done some flower planting. I was wondering if I could get any advise on planting my seeds that I purchased. I got Morning Glorys and sunflowers. I am going to try to get the morning glories to climb up the pillars on my front porch. I bought some peet pots and some miracle grow dirt. I am wondering about the water and what I can use to keep my cats out of them when I am at work. I was going to try to make a makeshift greenhouse to put on my dryer in the mud room. I would love to keep it outside but I am scared that it is too cold still.

A rule of thumb for how deep to plant seeds, is to plant 2 x the size of the seed.
With large seeds like peas or pumpkin, plant where they are to grow if possible and only water once. These larger seeds have enough size to absorb enough moisture to last them until they have germinated. This may not be the case in a heated seed tray though. Small seeds like carrot for example need to be watered up to a few times a day to ensure they don't become dry.
To keep your cats out, try a little pepper around the seed tray.
You will need a minimum temp of 15 deg Celsius to get sunflower seeds to germinate. If it gets colder than that at night, you'll need to leave them indoors or wait until the nights have warmed.
What's a mud room?

Great. Than you for your responce. I have not opened the seed packets yet so I don't know how big they are. I am going to try to get them planted by this weekend. A mud room is a little room that is connected to the house that you have to walk through to get to your door. Mine has my dryer in it and I was going to put the peet pots on there. It gets a lot of sun in the day and doesn't get too cold at night but there is no heat going to it. I am going to see if I can get a temperary green house. A small one. Since a sunflower seed is kind of a large seed should I even put it in the peet pot?

I started my sunflowers in a small 4" plastic pot 4 seeds to each pot. They did fine and all germinated.

Morning glories need to be soaked for 24 hours before they are planted to speed up the germination process. I would also suggest not planting any floaters since they have a tendency not to germinate for me. It is also suggested that you nick the outer shell of the morning glory to help it start. I don't find this necessary but it never hurts.

Definitely use humidity trays if you are using peat pots. I find that they dry out very quickly. A humidity tray is just a waterproof tray with some rocks or gravel in it that you can put the plants on so that they are not sitting in water but right above it. So that as the water evaporates the air around the plants gets very humid.

By The Way, welcome to the forum. I always enjoy seeing other virginians arrive. Where is Berryville?

Wow, That is great. I was going to put the sunflowers in the peet pots. They are the little trays with 30 or so in it. I have some small pots. Berryville is northwest. Near the Charlestown, WV races and slots. It is a small farming town. We lucked into a small farm house and I am dreaming of Sunflowers. I am originally from Kansas so I have a passion for them. The morning glories grow in an ivy right? I am going to try to get those to wrap around my posts on my front porch. So with the humidity trays, do you put water at the bottom with the rocks?

I was born and raised in Kansas, lived there for 36 years.

Last year, I started my sunflower seed in yogurt continers that had holes drilled in the bottom. When they got to be a decent size I put them in the garden. I had start them indoors to keep the squirrels from digging them up.