A lot of people want to grow their own vegetables, fruit, and herbs, but don't know where to start. It's taken me several years, but I've gotten pretty good at it. I continue to improve and learn from others and will be even better once I'm in a house where I can plant in the ground and have more room to work.

For the purpose of my blog, I'm talking about fruits and veggies in the culinary sense, not biologically. So cucumbers, squash, greens, peppers, etc = veggies. Tomatoes and strawberries = fruit.

I grow plenty of vegetables and some herbs, but very little fruit. That's because most fruits seem to grow on bushes, vines, or trees, and I can't have any of those in my container garden. But once I get into a house and have land, I am looking forward to growing a lot more fruit. When it comes to herbs, I just grow the things I use often, like basil, rosemary, cilantro, and chives. I also grow some mint to help attract pollinators and such.

At first I began by buying seedlings that had already been started. I had no idea how to plant seeds, how to get them to do well, etc. I tried a few times and always failed. That's because I wasn't doing it right and did not have the proper tools. So by buying them all ready to go in the ground, I saved myself a lot of time and heartache. At first I bought them from places like Home Depot and Walmart, but then I found a few local nurseries. My favorite is Deep Creek Garden Center, which is at the other end of our street. I have a hard time passing by there in the spring and summer without stopping by. These nurseries tend to get their stock from local farms, which means I'm supporting my community by buying there. They also don't have the issues with plants that have been treated with chemicals that kill pollinators.

The first several years I purchased all of my plants there. They always have great deals going on and a pretty good selection. If you go in late spring, often times you can find plants that are already covered in small fruits/veggies.

Then I began experimenting again with growing my own seedlings. I went out and bought seedling trays, some seeds, and potting soil. I would get items to grow, but they were slow going and typically died within a week or two of sprouting. They were typically "leggy" (long stem) and small. I even made sure to leave the lamp on over them, but that only helped somewhat. So once again I purchased my seedlings from the nursery.

Then I started reading online about growing seeds and realized that I had two problems:

First I was using potting soil instead of seedling soil. Seedling soil is specially made for seedlings and has all the nutrients your seedling is going to need for its first few months. Potting soil typically has no added nutrients, which means you need to add to it in order to get good growth on your seedlings.

The second mistake was that I was using regular lamps - a table lamp and the one that hangs over my dining room table. These were not enough to grow seedlings. They were also quite a distance from the plants, particularly the hanging light. Hence why the plants would get so "leggy", as they were trying to reach the light source. I remembered seeing a grow store over near where I live, so I went in there to get some advice. I ended up picking up a 4' long light and a stand to hold it. This light pretty much covers my entire table with light, even when the leaf is in use. That meant I could grow a lot of plants under it.

Upon fixing my soil and light problems, my seedlings took off like crazy.

I still had one problem, though - mold. The trays that I had the clear lids on always seemed to grow mold, which would then cause issues with my seedlings. I decided to stop using the trays since it was already fairly warm inside. Sure enough this fixed the mold problem and I didn't really see any difference in germination times. I think if my house were drier or cooler the lids might make a difference, but since we already run humid and warm, it makes more sense not to use the lids.

Since then I've had a lot of success with my plants. Hopefully when I do my next batch of seedlings I'll get to record a video of it so that you can also watch me go through the process.