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alrighty I’m live how’s it going everybody we are live very first ever backyard farming Academy podcast we’ve got a couple minutes I’m gonna go radio silent until we’re here [Music] [Music] hello hello everybody this is Tate dly I’m your head instructor over here at the backyard farming Academy and I’m also the creator of backyard Farming Supply as well as keto life nutrients we appreciate you guys jumping over here and hanging out with us means a lot we know that you guys have a lot going on in your busy lives and we’re just here to give back an awesome little holiday gift for you guys as we come into this holiday season and as we enter into 2024 gardening season we’re very excited to give the gift of food security health nutrient density and Wellness to everybody who’s showing up so thank you very much we really appreciate it I am going to kind of just start diving into some of this stuff I know a lot of you guys will be continuing to show up and all the different things once again thank you for your time and I’m going to go ahead and dive in but before I dive in I just want to give a little precursor to what helped us create the seed starting blueprint and why we’re bringing it to the backyard farming community so basically we know that there’s a lot of things going on in the food security system whether it’s food availability or pest uh whe or pesticides herbicides fungicides or chemicals that are being put into our food or GMO genetics or mRNA manipulation there’s a lot of question marks around food right now what’s in it what’s on it is it going to be available and what is the price going to be so these are massive issues that are coming to the food supply chain and I wish that I was going to say that it was going to get better but it looks like potentially 2024 it will only get worse even though the government has pegged that inflation has been coming down I have not seen it in running a business or interacting with Farmers because of all of these expedited expenses are so are so much higher it’s basically impossible for us to be certain of the food security situation and the cost of the food so we we just designed the seed starting blueprint because we know at the end of the day if you’re going to take control of your garden it’s got to be from seed because if you grab the right seeds you’re ensure that they’re non-GMO and that they’re an heirloom or a hybridized type of genetic that has been done through conscious human and planetary ethical breeding then you’re going to be sitting in a much better scenario right off the bat so it’s pretty interesting to look at all these things that are happening to Farmers whether it’s fuel costs that are still high labor costs that are still higher Insurance uh input costs and expenses whether it’s fertilizers soil seeds harvesting equipment or other types of technology that is absolutely essential for them to bring their crop to Market it is absolutely huge for us to take control of these things there’s also a lot of things going on in the dietary world and people are pushing people toward carnivore diets and pescatarian diets and all sorts of diets and it’s not that any of them are wrong but I feel that the root cause that we’ve got to drastically switch up our dietary functions is because is because of all of the different things that are going on in the food supply system like my personal opinion this gluten thing that’s going on for the last 10 plus years now I personally don’t think it has anything to do with the gluten now maybe for some type of people and some type of genetics yes but at the end of the day its majority has to do with the pesticides herbicides fungicides that are being being used in and around these cultivation Farms it also has a lot to do with the genetics of these particular types of seed when we look at corn and soy and wheat and other main stable crops those are the areas that genetic modification has came in at the highest level to ensure that farmers and Growers have a successful crop at the end of the day however sometimes we’re not necessarily paying attention to the best metric that gets us the delivered harvestable crop what is the outcome of this crop is it going to be good for the people the planet and the systems that it comes in contact with down the road so that’s really why we’re bringing the seed starting blueprint to the table is to give you guys an opportunity to really take control of this so we really appreciate you guys being here I know I’ve said it and my phone is kind of blowing up right now I’m getting text messages I’m getting WhatsApp messages I’m getting signal messages I’m getting telegram messages I’m getting regular text messages Facebook Instagram messages so if I kind of seem a little distracted it’s probably because I am getting blown up over here which is good which is good um so with that being said I’m really glad to have you guys here and I’m going to go ahead and dive in to a couple small sections of the seed starting blueprint now some of you guys have seen the seed starting blueprint and you’ve came back and you’re like wow you guys have put together a highly comprehensive course the seed starting blueprint has a 200 plus page workbook it has multiple ebooks it has up to 40 videos it has tests it has quizzes and there’s a lot of things going on there and some people are like wow I didn’t realize that I was going to be getting a bachelor in starting seats we like to we like to go to the nth degree we like to go to the very maximum detail but also we want to not overwhelm people and we want to put it in a positive light that is consumable for most people with the busy schedules that we’ve got all the different events that are happening constantly and all the different people that are reaching out to us in our busy everyday lives let alone to mention by the the time we get off work we go into husband or wife mode or significant other mode maybe we’ve got the kids or the pets to take care of maybe we’ve already got some seeds started and they’re just taking a little bit too much work out of our maybe they’re taking a little bit too much time out of our busy schedule to be able to take care of them well I’ll give you a little pre- teaser last year I had an opportunity to go to Dubai and Monaco and got a beautiful travel opportunity all over the world well I had actually started a little bit over a thousand seeds at the time I had all these seeds growing and I had to leave my house for three weeks at a time when I came back it was awesome because my systems and my equipment and my tools allowed me to fully automate my vegetable seed growing to the point when I came back I lost no seedlings at all it was an absolute victory and it really showed me the light of how we can automate equipment tools to be able to give us an automated Garden so that we can continue with our busy lives at the end of the day we need to be able to use technology and our life and our time accordingly to be able to maximize our results so that’s why we’ve developed the seed starting blueprint and our seed starting blueprint like I said is highly comprehensive today we’re going to go into a quick Deep dive on two sections of the seed starting blueprint and that is choosing and prepping your space as well as the equipment and tools that you’re going to need to be in place before you start your seeds so let’s go ahead and dive in I think one of the biggest things that we can do when it comes to starting our seeds is choosing and preparing your space at the end of the day this is the most crucial thing if we start them obviously outside in Colorado and they get snowed on all your efforts are gone if we go and we put them into a shed that has no insulation and the temps and humidities are ping ponging all over the place it’s going to give us a lot more pest disease and also uncalculated or unpredicable growth patterns for our seedlings so it is what it is but at the end of the day choosing and preparing your space is the foundation for your seed starting efforts so that’s where we’re going to start because doesn’t matter what types of seeds or equipment that you have if you don’t have them in the right space you’re not going to get the results that you’re looking for so I’m going to go ahead and jump in so the main things like I said is choosing the right space for starting your seeds some of the recommended equipment tools that you might need in those specific places to do things like automate your seed starting or control the grow environment so that it’s a much more calculated and consistent grow environment we’re also going to go into how we can clean and sterilize these places before we start growing to minimize Pest and disease and we’re also going to go into creating ideal environments and setting and also setting up and getting your seed starting supplies these are quick basic things but at the end of the day they’re so many variables that go into this on the back end so here we are we are looking at choosing the right area and I’ve kind of alluded to some of this stuff already but the biggest thing is flat temperatures humidities and environment you want to choose the space that has the most flat characteristics when I say flat it’s exactly opposite of the Ping ponging growing environments like some of us have tried now this is similar to like a greenhouse a greenhouse can be an amazing place to grow but it can also be a very difficult place to grow because of the lack of insulation and the lack of potential grow environmental controls if you’re lacking grow environmental controls at the end of the day you are going to see a lot of swing in your environment and the swing in your environment is like we’ve said one of the biggest areas that is going to give you problems how well for example if we have a lowering temperature and potentially a raising humidity which often happens simultaneously that is the perfect growing habitat for things like mold more specifically powdery mildew Downey mildew Bettis and other types of fungal presence that can really affect your plants at the end of the day this is a bad way to start your seeds because if right off the bat they’ve got powdery mildew dowy mildew or Bettis that is going to affect the plant for the rest of its life period and it’s ultimately G to probably even kill off that plant or infect the rest of your garden before fruit set and definitely Harvest even happens so these flat temperatures and humidities is the most important thing if we start with flat even if it’s lower temperature flat the most flat environment we can possibly get is the best so we’re going to go ahead and look at some of the other characteristics like airflow what type of air flow is there because when we look at flat temperature a lot of times that comes with flat airflow if you’ve got leaks and cracks and crevices and a a window that does doesn’t fully shut or exhaust fans that aren’t on Backdraft dampers or intake fans that aren’t on Backdraft dampers or air conditioners that don’t have a heat mode setting we’re going to automatically have a much more difficult time regulating the temperature and humidity through the air flow that we’re seeing so it is what it is that’s why we’re here that’s why we’re giving you guys this advice to really allow you to take a detective a Horticultural detectives perspective of everything that’s going on in your seed starting room so one of the next biggest things is lighting are we using lighting from a window or a natural source like a skylight obviously free energy is amazing and mother nature definitely makes the best light at the end of the day now when it comes to this type of light there’s a few variables that we’ve got to look at number one what’s the intensity number two what is that light doing to the temperature of your particular grow room because a flat temperature grow room can have fluctuations just because of the lighting levels another big thing with natural light is photo period what type of photo period are we seeing how much how many hours of light versus Darkness are we having because that directly goes to some of the characteristics that our seeds will display when it comes to showing their sex whether they’re male or female a lot of plants have both male and female characteristics and through environment and phenotypic or genotypic responses it’s actually going to trigger a bunch of different environmental aspects excuse me a bunch of different genetic aspects so it can definitely be a huge Pro to have some natural lighting but it can also be a con a lot of times what I see especially in a seed starting room that’s going to be in somewhere like here I am in Colorado that is going to be the here in Colorado we’re going to be starting our seeds you know maybe late January early February for your things like your peppers and maybe some of your Tomatoes maybe even some of your Brasa cross as well but at the end of the day you’re going to want to have a little bit more control of those seeds in your environments so I’m actually a huge proponent of blocking off as much of the fluctuating environment being windows and natural light as possible in my seed starting room to give me full control and then I then I come in with something like LED light lighting and or high pressure sodium or metal H or T5 fluorescent grow lighting these things are absolutely amazing yes it costs you more energy on your power bill and yes you’ve got to buy the equipment but once you have bought the equipment a lot of these things like especially T5 and LED lighting you can get at extremely low wattages like a lot of clone and seedling LEDs are 18 to 40 Watts so it’s pretty much in your standard range of electrical usage as a typical uh as a typical normal home lighting Source but at the end of the day you’re repurposing that energy towards growing your food it’s really really important and not we usually don’t see the really high energy output lights that take a lot of energy and also create a lot of heat until we’re looking for high horsepower lighting that’s going to give us fruit and flower development that’s where it gets a little bit more expensive on the Utility side and that’s definitely where you’re going to see the cost of these Lighting Technologies exponentially increase but once again you get what you pay for and the beautiful thing about something like LED lighting right now versus 10 years ago is it’s going to be light that lasts for a really long time its spectrum is usually fully adjustable its wattage is fully adjustable and we’re going to be able to fine-tune these light sources to the exact use case scenario that we’re looking for so there’s a lot of benefits and Lighting in of itself well actually all three of these things we could go on for days and days about but we’re trying to keep it short and sweet and not overwhelm you guys like we might have done done in some spots in the seed starting blueprint so lighting is absolutely essential and while we’re on lighting I do want to talk about the timing of your lighting a little bit because there’s a lot of different types of plants most of them are going to benefit at an 18-hour on period to a 24hour on period usually during the seedling starting phase there’s no problems with leav leaving your Lighting on 247 a especially if you’re a little bit late in the season and you want to make up a little bit extra time however I feel if we want to mimic nature that we need to let our plants sleep and there’s a lot of studies out there that show that our plants actually grow the most during the sleeping phase and or potentially that’s where they build up their energy to grow more the next day there’s a lot of different studies on this and there’s a lot of different different manipulation methods that we can input to really give us an opportunity to maximize our lighting and our genetics and also the sexual expression of our plants via photo period so it is what it is but at the end of the day the all of these things are going to go directly into our space and when I have been talking about environment and lighting something that I really push especially for seed starting is vertical tear growing we can go to big box stores we can grab these four and five tier wire racks for right around $100 they’re an amazing rack and we can use them in many different purposes whether it’s starting our seedlings vegging our seedlings transplanting our seedlings into vegetative plants or even all the way at the end of the year using them has areas to cure and hold some of our produce without the lights being on this is a multifaceted space that you’re putting together there and I actually do exactly what I’m talking about and I use my seed starting room to be able to store my produce at the end of the season so that I’ve got a little bit more space in my kitchen to be able to do my prepping cooking and ultimately give me working space in my kitchen so definitely think vertically when it comes to storing produce as well as Growing Seeds a two foot by 4 foot area can give you a ton of growing area and honestly it can give you enough room to pop about 1,200 seeds if you’re doing them in 72count Trace obviously if you’re going down to 50c count trays or 24c count trays you’re going to have less plants but you might actually be able to maximize those plants and get bigger more mature root systems and vegetative mass of these plants before they go out in the garden and ultimately I think that that’s the garden let’s bring our rais beds our vertical grow towers and all the garden features that we’ve got the biggest baddest healthiest plants that we possibly can that’s for sure we want thriving root system and plants with no pest disease health issues or anything else and at the end of the day this is going to make our garden absolutely explode especially if we maximize timing and let’s say that we’ve started our seeds early enough in this space so that by the time we go out into our garden we’ve got little baby flower sites coming off of our pepper plants now we’re going to see Peppers maybe a week maybe two weeks into development by the time we go out into the garden that is absolutely huge that’ll bring your harvesting timeline from let’s say the beginning of August if you went out with a really small seedling to maybe the end of June there’s a huge difference there especially when we look at poundage of yield that we’re going to be pulling from our crop and also opportunity to get it to be able to blow people’s mind with the delicious flavors and diversity of varieties that we’re able to grow in seeds in our grow room that we cannot get in the big box stores this is absolutely essential so there like I said there’s a lot that we could talk about here but at the end of the day we’re going to keep moving some of the possible locations once again are tiered racks window sills Garden sheds grow tents and green houses and if you really want us to dive into this pay attention to the some some of the future courses that we’re coming out with through backyard farming Academy specifically around Hydroponics because a lot of times our tiered rack systems and our grow tents and our green houses use some type of hydroponic growing method even if our plants are still growing in soil now traditionally hydrop I means growing in water but I also feel that there’s a hybridized approach to this where we can be growing in living soil but using automated hydroponic style systems to be able to maximize our growth and minimize our effort now obviously there’s other places like window sills that this might not be as much possible and it all depends on the scale and size of your garden your household your yard and your family so a window s can be an amazing place for you to use to be able to grow seedlings but at the end of the day it’s gonna probably be for something as simple as one clone Dome one seedling Dome one 50count tray or 72count tray it’s going to be easy to take care of because you’ve got no expense all you did was you bought your seedling tray and your seeds you put it in your window sill hopefully it’s right by your kitchen and you can water it very easily by hand set it and forget it super simple and be able to hang out and take care of your seedlings every single day now something like a garden shed a lot of times we think hey that’d be a great spot because of its location its proximity to the Garden maybe we’re not using or maximizing it but ultimately a lot of garden sheds are not very well insulated and you’re going to see a huge swing in the environment and that swing is going to do all the things that we’ve already talked about give you more pest more disease and ultimately slow down the Vigor of your seedlings I really like something like a grow tent let’s say that you’ve got a basement or an extra guest bedroom a grow tent can be absolutely amazing because they’re very cheap to get especially if you go to somewhere like Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist or to a friend that might not be using one you can get them for usually a 100 bucks 200 bucks somewhere right around there now 200 bucks on a grow tent $100 on a tier maybe a hundred bucks on some LEDs maybe a hundred bucks on a pump and some reservoirs a pH pen and some nutrients you’re off to the races for only a couple hundred bucks and you’re G to have an extremely dialed in grow environment especially if you’re doing something like a basement or a guest bedroom with your grow tent in it you’re going to have the most flat temperatures possible you’re going to actually be able to hook up and exhaust fan these tents and simply Evacuate the air out of that room on a basic fan and temperature control or humid thatat and that’s going to give you a really good space honestly a lot better than most green houses now green houses are absolutely amazing honestly they’re they’re my favorite place to grow in General and they’re definitely the plant’s favorite place to grow but to be able to get them dialed in takes a little bit more work whether you have to have a mini split air conditioner which is a good amount of power and a good amount of expense on its own now that is a grand slam putting a mini split air conditioner that’s capable and specifically speced out for the amount of Beats he use for that amount of space that amount of of heat maybe it’s via lighting or bringing into account the amount of sun and temperature that you typically see there year round you can use those measurements to be able to calculate a BTU setting for your grow tent which will give you a specific size of mini split air conditioner now mini splits are awesome because it’s a condenser and it’s a Handler or it’s a a head unit the head unit is going to go ahead and treat with the air conditioning and heating and keep it right inside that Target flat temperature zone that you’re looking for but you’re also gonna see this really maximize your grow results so at the end of the day greenh houses are a little bit more expensive to set up and it also is a little bit more environmentally independent it places like Colorado it’s hard to maximize a greenhouse for pre-season conditions because you’re going to get snow that’s going to fall on top of the greenhouse and completely shade out any of the lighting maybe the condensation from that cold temperature mixing with the warm air inside is going to create a very high humidity environment but also that rapid temperature fluctuation when you come in and out of that grow room is going to welcome a lot of pest and disease this is where we’ve got to do even further things the greenh hous is like putting entryways so that we’ve got a space to enter close the door open the door to the greenhouse then go in which will reduce our Pest and disease as well as our temperature fluctuations drastically but all of these things are more time more effort and more budget so it really depends on you if you’re like hey I’m trying to grow for Acres then that’s probably your best bet if you’re like I’m only growing for my family of four you’d probably find an easier setup space and then use that space that you would have used outside for your Greenhouse for something else more seasoned approach because green houses like I said are amazing but there’s a lot of variabilities that come with them for the average grower that can create a lot of complications and ultimately we’ve all been to our gardener buddy’s house that has the really small little big box store glass Greenhouse that they bought because it was super cute and they thought that it was going to be really easy to just go ahead and start some seedlings in there and all of a sudden nobody’s using it it’s sitting there maybe it even has dead plants in it from the year before but it’s a little bit more difficult to use a greenhouse in heavy fluctuating temperature environments and snowfall or rainfall than places like Arizona or New Mexico where you’re going to have a lot longer season and be able to put a greenhouse to use a lot more effectively like I said we could go way further into the details on all this stuff and we could really go into the weeds and we can spend literally probably weeks on just the greenhouse aspect alone but then you guys would leave and you’d be overwhelmed so we don’t want to do that so that’s a you know good we are looking at when it comes to prepping and choosing our space another thing I just wanted to pause and say real quick we’re about 30 minutes in on this presentation thank you guys I’ve definitely seen a couple more of you guys show up some people have been leaving some people are chiming in on different social apps put a comment down below let us know where you came from did you see this post on a Facebook group if so what group did you see this on Instagram did you see this on LinkedIn did you see this from an email that we sent we would love to know this is our first time doing this and at the end of the day we are looking to make make this experience as good as possible and polish it and continue to get better and better every single time that we do one of these live q&as we’re going to be doing them every Thursday for the rest of the winter into the spring and hopefully throughout next summer when we have a live studio back in the garden this is my personal Garden here at the backyard farm we’ve got about 24 features here excuse me we’ve got about 24 garden grow beds or features some of them might might be the same type of feature like a rectangle bed here or here some of them might be Bean tunnels like right here triangle beds outdoor showers outdoor processing stations and a lot of other things that we put into our backyard farm to minimize our effort that’s really what we bring to the table at the end of the day people always ask me what is backyard Farming Supply and why did you guys create the backyard farming Academy I did it to bring people food Security in these uncertain times to be able to care for their loved ones their kids and their family with food that they know what is in and on it but also to add to their property value but mainly to reduce their headaches we have been in agriculture for 60% of my life at this point professionally and I’ve been gardening since I was a small kid ever since I can’t even remember so we really want to bring this course and backyard farming is Supply to connect the education supplies and people to the property to be able to maximize your memories with your family maximize the lessons that you’re instilling into your future Generations so that they can be food secure because there’s nothing better we can give a kid a tomato or a strawberry but if we teach our kids how to grow corn cabbage strawberries peppers onions tomatoes and everything else we feed them and their families for a lifetime and that’s really why we’ve created backyard farming Academy is to do what we can do for the global food crisis situation we want to give back to our backyard farming communities and families all over the world and we really appreciate the opportunity to do that with you guys and we really appreciate you guys showing us the love and support liking commenting and subscribing on our socials spreading the word and hitting that like button because YouTube really needs that the more likes we get the more comments we get the more it warms up the algorithm and allows more people that are into food farming to really smash it so at this point I want to open it up to a Q&A anybody any questions that you’ve got for me regarding seed starting blueprint backyard farming Academy or choosing and prepping your space go ahead and throw them in now oh all right we’ve got we’ve got Natalie Quinn jumping in saying excellent to see this we’ve got Michelle Jones we’ve got our Green Thumb ready we’ve also got Seth in the house thanks Seth appreciate you hey we’ve got Sophia Kelly in the house as well thank you for guiding the way great to see you again Michelle J is say never stop learning and really at the end of the day that is what it’s all about we are students till the day we die Seth is asking is there a light from a w is a light from a window enough to grow tomatoes well Seth that’s a great question first off it depends where your window is how much direct sunlight you’ve got and what type of tomato you’re trying to grow if you’re trying to grow an indeterminate tomato that’s going to get50 15 ft plus tall probably not your best bet but if you want to go hunt out a really awesome fun little baby dwarf variety that you can put in a one to three gallon pot this is a great place especially if you’ve got direct sun exposure for a minimum of four to six hours really cool place definitely if it’s in your kitchen too it’s going to add a nice Ambiance and it’s going to really allow you to smell and see that beautiful dwarf tomato growing throughout its entire Lifeline it’s going to put it on showcase for your kids and your family members that come over and it’s just a beautiful experience so depending on your light and depending on the variety yes Natalie Quinn is saying thank you for your advice do you already buy your seeds for this upcoming season or is it too early when should I buy my seeds that is a great question Natalie actually I am a huge fan of starting to acquire and buy my seeds from the second my last Harvest comes down why because that’s when seed availability is at the highest that’s when you can hunt out the most unique varieties and you can also get them before they’re sold out a lot of times especially nowadays and age where myself included a little bit you know uh instant gratification oriented where we expect for us to click a couple buttons online boom it shows up well starting seeds and gardening in general totally switches our mentality and it really gets us into proper performance prevents poor performance or proper prep preparation prevents poor performance and at the end of the day that is what it’s all about so I say start getting your seeds even during the middle of the summer if you see a variety you’re like oh my God I did not get to grow that this year that sounds absolutely amazing next year I have to grow the black strawberry tomato go ahead and buy the black stra strawberry tomato I am a firm believer to always be buying and always be popping seeds so hope that answered your question Natalie Seth is asking for email yes we’re gonna have emails coming out to the group [Music] and oh yes we also do have a Facebook group if you guys are curious about our Facebook group it is backyard farming Academy on Facebook very simple and always feel free to go over and check out backyard Farming Supply YouTube socials and elsewhere what Natalie Quinn is asking asking where are you buying your seeds well I am excited to say that in the short shortly after the beginning of 2024 the backyard Farming Supply website will have a ton of seeds and seeds starting gear on there so you guys can centralize your knowledge supplies into one spot with backyard Farming Supply and Academy another couple vendors that I got to throw some huge sh outs to that I absolutely love are Victory gardening Victory gardening is a really amazing site they’ve got I especially love their dwarf tomato variety selection if you are constrained by space or you’re just sick of growing indeterminate tomatoes that you feel like all you’re doing is trimming leaves and chots the whole year now this is a good spot for us to incorporate dwarf tomatoes because dwarf Tomatoes put all their energy into the fruit instead of the leaves chots and Vines so I definitely love Victory not only are they good for the dwarf Tomatoes but they’ve got amazing peppers and greens and all sorts of different things that you want so check out Victory seeds another one that I love is RAR seeds.com or Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds as you guys saw some of the YouTube videos maybe we’ll post it in the link down below is we have got a bunch of we got a bunch of seeds from Baker Creek my apologies we got a bunch of seeds from Baker Creek heirloom seeds last year and we had some extremely rare varieties of all sorts of different things whether it was the sixf foot kale that had leaves the size of my torso or the dwarf Tomatoes or unique indeterminate and determinate Tomatoes leafy greens Mauna radishes spinach varieties and all sorts of other things Baker Creek had an amazing selection I would say that Baker Creek might have one of the largest selections of unique seeds but Victory seeds is not far behind what’s cool about supporting companies like this is they are not owned by the gigantic ABC companies that we don’t want to say here on this podcast some of us all know who some of these companies are that have kind of done some damage in the agricultural section and that are responsible for us questioning what’s in and on our food so vote with your dollar and support companies that you’ve done your research to make sure that they are doing ethical practices that you are proud to support that’s what I’ve got to say so Natalie I hope that answered your question we’ve got Jordan Music Entertainment can I just sew seeds into the soil and not worry about buying all the equipment yes you can depending on what type of seed you’re trying to grow and what environment you’re in also what time of year and how many harvests before your plants start fruiting for example here in Colorado I could probably go out in early May and I could direct sew a bunch of seeds and by the time June 1st which is my targeted planting date I could probably have seeds seedlings six to 12 inches tall now if I take that same seed and I start it inside a stable environment all the way back to late January or early February we’re going to be going out with with full-blown mature two maybe even three plus foot tall plants that have flower sites fruit sites rocking and rolling and we’re going to be seeing deliverable produce within weeks after that versus the direct seed sewing technique with something especially like a Pepper or a tomato might not be as advantageous to maximize our Harvest our yield but also the amount of time that we go through through the summer before we get to start enjoying and feeding our friends this amazing produce now on the flip side things like beans or pole beans some leafy greens radishes and some other crops like that you corn specifically you do not ever really want to plant inside corn is always the direct a directo plant I feel that this by the time that you directo a corn plant you’re going to be automatically limiting its root size limiting its overall maturity corn really likes to be directly planted allow that tap Routt to go as deep as absolutely possible and by the time that tap rout Taps that’s when the rest of the Corn plant really starts to grow beans are the same way there’s no need to sprout them inside because they’re so fast growing you could Sprout your beans even potentially the first or second week of June here in Colorado with a targeted planting date of June 1st and you’re going to be totally fine you’re gonna have massive bean plants and massive vines that put off thousands of beans like Bean tunnel this last year we had over 100 types of beans and we actually sprouted those goes at about the third week of June so it really depends on where you’re at what type of plant you’re trying to grow but also your system my system grows really really fast once the plants are in the dirt because it’s irrigated and it’s fertigated which is fertilizer irrigation so I hope that answered your question Jordan Michelle Jones if I buy my seeds early where should I store them to keep them safe until planting that is a great question a lot of times we’re going to want to store we’re going to want to take the same aspects with our seed storage as our seed environment we want the most flat temperatures and humidity possible I actually keep mine in my safe some people have seen some of our YouTube videos and are like whoa dude you have a giant safe what’s in there uh all seeds literally so that’s a great place because they’re locked out of the light they’re in a flat temperature they’re in a flat humidity there where people can’t get to them kids aren’t going to be messing with them seeds aren’t going to be getting me mixed up and I can continue to add to my collection it also gives you enough space to have little divider or rubber Maids or Tupper wees labeled specifically Tomatoes pepper greens kale whatever and it really gives you organization and then you can even go further and you can have Tupper Wares that you’re like seeds I’ve grown before and seeds I look forward to Growing next year so that way it eases your organizational efforts to be able to maximize your cultivation and optimize your diversity so hope that answered it for you Michelle are the seeds at Walmart bad you know I I like to say if you’re growing your own food right off the bat it’s so much better you could even take a GMO seed the thing about GMO seeds when you’re growing them the reason that they GMO seeds is so that they can withstand pesticide herbicide and fungicide better well if we buy even a GMO seed and we start growing it at our house and we’re not using pesticides herbicides and fungicides right off the bat it’s that much better for you than any type of produce that we’re getting at the store because all Farmers have what’s called an integrated Pest Management strategy especially if they’re in a big box store they have to especially if they’re at a commercial scale and have millions of plants and Acres of greenhouse or Acres a farm they have to have an integrated Pest Management strategy or they’re not going to have a successful Harvest so your integrated Wellness strategy can be buying even any seed even a seed at Walmart and sprouting it at your house to be able to take control of your food knowing what’s in and on it the whole time what I find is by sprouting your seeds at your house whether it’s a seed from Walmart Home Depot any big box store or the most small family Boutique seed swap right off the bat we’ve got that much more control it the seed has not been cultivated in an environment where Pest and disease are already established in greenhouse and farming horiculture it’s called bio accumulation so we’ve got no accumulated biology no accumulated pester diseases especially if we’re starting a fresh seedling in a fresh seedling room that’s sterilized since last season we’re going to start so much better off so Natalie Quinn I’m in the midwest when do I start my seeds directly in the ground well if you’re in the midwest let’s say you’re in somewhere like Michigan or Indiana or right around there you’re going to definitely be able to start them a little bit earlier than maybe somewhere here like Colorado now it depends if you’re in an area of Indiana right off the Great Lakes where it stays windy and cold until May or June you’re probably gonna have the same timeline as somewhere like Colorado when I even here in Colorado will will go ahead and sew my seeds about two to four weeks before my targeted planting day and my targeted planting day every single year is June 1st now last year in Colorado I could have definitely gotten away with planting May first and I had some friends that did plant May 1 and their Gardens were possibly even especially their Tomatoes were definitely bigger than mine but I’m always like what’s the gamble risk if I was going to be at home all month and I had support systems support systems like these that I could easily throw a tarp over now I might even start earlier than March 1 so it’s all once again also about your system and your tools that you’ve got with that being said probably a great time to go ahead and dive into equipment and tools for your growroom so let’s go ahead and start there oh let’s go back back and we are going to go into the equipment and tools the equipment tools is super essential and at the end of the day you get what you pay for you might have to spend a little bit more money on a better light but it’s going to last longer it’s going to give you better light with maybe a more adjustable spectrum and maybe even more adjustable wattage to give more horsepower on your on your seedlings as they become established versus just a T5 set it and forget it you get either two bulbs on four bulbs on or eight bulbs on you just increase the amount of bulbs but you’re not technically increasing the amount of wattage and you potentially aren’t changing your spectrums unless you’re doing things like swapping out your bulbs so there’s always variables to all this stuff and some of the recommended equipment and tools that we suggest are seedling trays and domes and when it comes to seedling trays and domes first thing is are you putting your bottom tray into a flood and drain or an automated format if so that very outer tray the most outer bottom tray not the thing with the cells in it which is called the insert is going to need to have holes now if you’re not automating it and you’re handw watering it and you want it to able to hold water for a few days to minimize your effort then you want it with NOS then the next thing is the inserts if you are strictly growing for the biggest most amazing root systems and plants possible you’re going to want to do something like a 24c count tray or a 50count tray you might even go down to a 12count tray those are really big plugs with really big seedlings and in the beginning it looks really goofy but after you give it two or three weeks you’re like ah I remember why I did that your plant is just able to stretch out more versus being crowded and just being a lot skinnier and more leggy leggy would refer to just shooting straight up and not growing outward and or more inter noal spacing and then the last thing is our Dome and our Dome is a couple variables that we’re going to look at first is if a handle like this does make a difference sometimes if you grab the domes from the side the weak ones it can snap in and it breaks a little SE seedling stem real quick so handles are nice does it have vents definitely don’t ever get a dome with no vents it’s going to be a huge pain in the butt for you and when it comes to vents there’s top Vents and there’s side vents I’m the uh grow Guru type of guy that I always like all the options and the best stuff so you guys will notice that about me so I like a dome with a handle top Vents and side vents to really maximize my air flow and my hardening off process plant labels is obviously a must I love multicolored just makes your life easy lights is also another absolutely amazing thing and lights is cool because there’s so many things obviously that topic could literally take us weeks and weeks to get through but I’ve gone over some of it already today I’m going to keep it super short and sweet I am recommending LED lighting why because it’s came so far in the last couple years it’s low wattage it’s low heat it’s lasts for a really long time it’s usually adjustable by wattage and it’s usually adjustable by Spectrum now with that being said if your grow environment if you need more more heat then you might want to go with something like an HID or high-intensity discharge light so there’s so many ways to be able to maximize our environment by using our equipment and tools to get a better environment or better performance even things like fans do we want a fan just blowing right on our seedlings all the time no do we want to fan in the air just J gently circulating the air yes do we want a roof fan amazing at the end of the day fans are perfect for letting plants breathe and if we can circulate the O2 and the CO2 up through the bottom of the plant and through to the top that is the preferred breathing mechanism for plants because at the end of the day if this is a plant’s leaf on the bottom we have stomata which are basically the capillaries of the lung for the plant and on the top we’ve got all the chlorophyll coronoids and the photosynthetic active radiation surface of the leaf or the solar panel and so we want to cycle all of that O2 off the bottom of the leaf allow new CO2 to go in through the stata while the photosynthetic active radiation or light is being processed to create glucose different types of starches and sugars and allow mobility of nutrients in general so there’s a lot of different things the air circulation and light right off the bat will give you for performance seedling plugs is also absolutely essential especially to minimize the amount of work that you put in are you going and buying bags of soil and filling trays can be really cost effective are we using pre-compressed plugs are we using expanded plugs we’ve all got opinions I really love the pre-expanded cocoa Pete plugs check some of them out on the backyard Farming Supply website these just make life easy they’re great for automation because they are a compressed nature and at the end of the day compressed plugs don’t leech paraly vermicular and fibers back down into your tray potentially back down in your Reservoir and potentially into your pumps or your drip irrigation lines which causes problems so I’m a huge fan of not using loose media and my seed starting setups to be able to avoid issues now are they a tiny bit more expensive yes but I feel like you get what you pay for and sometimes using loose dirt is a lot lot harder to automate than a plug now on the flip side if you don’t have your precom pre-compressed plug soaking in water for a certain amount of time you’re not going to get full hydration that is massive because at the end of the day if we bring our water level up and drain it before these pre-compressed plugs or anything else have had enough time to soak up the water now we’re g to have hydration and watering issues maybe it’s too much which gives pythium and root rot or fungal issues or maybe it’s not enough and it just slows down the growth of our plants obviously things like scissors are given in any garden and I absolutely love these Fisker scissors I have legitimately probably bought hundreds of pairs of these in my agricultural career at this point in time I don’t use them much but it is always nice to have a little water ing can on hand for that day that something weird happens and at the end of the day you’re not able to have your pumps doing what it needs you need to change your Reservoir you want to spot treat a tray you want to spot treat some nutrients to a specific tray because it’s growing faster than the other ones because of the type of plant it is it’s using more nutrients there’s a lot of different things and it’s always good to have a little simple watering can on hand heat mat for here in Colorado is absolutely essential now it depends on the type of environment and if you’re growing in a tiered rack system and what your temperatures and humidities are in your room it’s not necessarily completely essential but if you put a heat mat on a temperature probe and put it right at your root Zone it is massive for us to be able to regulate the temperature of our root systems which can exponentially increase our growth of our seedlings so the all of these things I would say are 101 Essentials for pretty much any type of grow environment I would say the least essential would be the heat mat but even if it’s on in a perfect environment and on a temperature and humidity uh controller excuse me on a temperature controller the main area where this is going to really help you is nighttime temperatures a lot of times we as Growers will look at all of these different pieces of equipment and tools and how is it performing when the lights are on and when it’s growing however one of the most important time periods is how is it treating your seedlings and what is the environment when the lights are off and things are not growing because that is an area that can sometimes be four to eight hours of a really inconsistent grow environment that can be really fighting our daytime results so keep it short and sweet let’s keep moving let’s dive in cleaning and sanitizing your space is massive as well this is ultimately going to reduce the headaches The Pest and disease that you’ve got exponentially and that is huge if we’re using things like hydrogen peroxide or white vinegar or h PA hypochlorous acid PPA peroxy atic acid or even just ionized low pH water we can really sterilize a lot of surfaces with noninvasive chemicals like bleach a lot of times gardeners want to use bleach and don’t get me wrong bleach has been used in agriculture millions of times with no problems in any way shape or form however if you overdo it and you have too much bleach in your water or in your cleaning solution you’re going to really mess things up there’s a lot of different things that can happen with bleach whether it leaves a residue on the seedling the plug the insert the tray the drip line the pump the reservoir we these are things that we really don’t want we want nonvolatile non-residue based chemicals and things that evaporate really really easily and have a very low VOC or vola organic compounds that will mess with our plants I’ve seen a lot of people kill plants by sterilizing their environment with bleach that is just not good and it can it can also be a lingering problem that is very hard to take care of bleach can stick around on all these surfaces until you come along and discover where it is and and use the right agent to break down that chemical and the right amount of elbow grease or pressure to get it out of the room at the end of the day we’re going to want to make sure that we sterilize all surfaces our fan blades our trays our drip lines our pumps our irrigation our our domes and some of these things are going to be a little bit higher frequency of sterilization than other like the grow room in general unless you’re spilling stuff everywhere all the time you really only need to sterilize it once or maybe twice throughout the entire grow environment usually One initial sterilization a good Air route session with all your fans on making sure that there’s nothing in there and then planting will suffice however something like your clone domes you might want to sterilize multiple times sometimes people even once they get to the hardening off phase will start sterilizing their Dome with a extremely light rubbing alcohol H2O2 or ionized water spray just to kill off any microbials or fungal spores that are developing inside of that root system so that is massive and another thing I wanted to talk about is automating your seed starting station at the end of the day this is this is huge right here at the end of the day your automation can go we could talk about this for years because I’m still learning about Automation and I’ve been a professional horticulturist and student to the day I die since a sophomore in high school where when I fell in love with growing and that allowed me to step into plant and Greenhouse Sciences as my Junior and senior year in high school automating your seed starting station can be cheap or expensive it can be shortterm and it can be long-term it really depends on you and your targeted effects and how seriously you want to take it how set up and established you are at this property and how many years after you see yourself using maximizing and optimizing your seed starting station I don’t know you guys have seen mine check out the link in the video down below we’re going to put some stuff about my seed starting station I did a really good job last year but at the end of the year I ripped it all down and I reoptimized the whole thing this is the nature of the Beast You’ll Always Find little tiny things that you want to continue to tweak and optimize for the next year so to go over it real quick some of the simple things that you’re going to need to automate your seed starting station and if you guys want more info on this make sure you head over to Backyard farming Academy in the near future we’re going to be dropping the automation course how to automate your seed starting as well as your garden and potentially even more what else could we mean well you have to find out so follow along so the pH meter is absolutely huge I love my pH meter my Hannah combo meter yes it’s about 300 bucks it’s a little bit more expensive than your cheapy generic ones that you can get online but you get what you pay for I’ve had this meter now for maybe more than 10 years I’ve had to replace the probe one time and it was my fault I let it dry out and I did not keep the probe suspended in the cleaning solution if I would have kept it suspended in the cleaning solution I probably would still have the original probe from this pen that I bought maybe 12 or 13 years ago at this point a tiered rack absolutely essential you can get these maybe you’ve got one sitting around maybe you want to go to a big box store maybe you want to go on a Facebook Marketplace or Craigslist super easy to find maybe your buddy has one that he’s not using an arom mixer pump is great for your Reservoir now they make a couple different sizes and you don’t have to get an arrow mixer but it is my preferred method because it oxygenates RO water really well it’s your that is your first toe dip into the world of maximizing Doo or dissolved oxygen the higher levels of Doo the lower levels of rootborn pathogens also the more stable our pH our potential of hydrogen and also the better our nutrient Reservoir will be kept throughout the entire timeline so it’s really really interesting what we can can do by manipulating just our water through things like aerom mixers or even basic super cheapy aquarium pumps and airstones both of these things can be used and played into automate the filling and draining of an easy clone T of an easy clone I prefer the Low Pro easy clone unit some of you guys might not know what they are they have been traditionally used in cloning or propagating a variety let’s say you found a tomato variety that you absolutely love and you want to take one of the suckers off of it toss it into the aeroponic cloner and grow root mass for an exact clone copy of that favorite tomato plant that you’ve grown in your variety or maybe you want to automate your seeds starting easy clone now is an amazing propagation Pro plug and the propagator Pro plug has the ability to start seeds in it so it minimizes your seed starting effort which another huge Pro of that is now you have a Seedling that’s grown with no Dome so you do not have to harden It Off by humidity at any point in time it is absolutely amazing and all of these things whether it’s a tiered rack your arom mixer your Reservoir or your easy cloner are going to benefit immensely by being on some type of timer this will reduce your energy bill this will also reduce noise of water bubbling and maybe spilling and it’ll also allow you to control your irrigation frequency to the nth level of your control which check out the automation course and or feel free to throw a comment in any of our YouTube videos or down below to be able to get guidance on how you can maximize your irrigation and your automation of your seedlings best with that being said we are coming upon the end of today’s first webinar for the backyard farming Academy hosted by backyard Farming Supply we really appreciate your time I’m open to some more Q&A if you guys have got it I’ve gone about 14 minutes over one thing you guys will find out about me I love this stuff genuinely it’s my heart it’s my soul it’s my passion and it’s my being and I’m here for you to answer your questions maximize your results and ultimately it’s hard to get me to shut up about gardening so always feel free to Ping us ask us more questions and really contribute we appreciate your love support and passion and Michelle thank you for your time we appreciate it and we’re here to learn with you by no means by even us as being a head instructor are we saying that we know everything we’re students till the day we die yes we’ll see you next time I’m Tate dly backyard farming Academy backyard Farming Supply have a great day keep on growing