Seeding & Labeling your Trays (Part 2 of 6)

Updated

Sow 1 to 2 lettuce seeds or 3 to 5 herb seeds into each rockwool cube, then cut, label, mist and cover your tray.

After Preparing & Sanitizing your Rockwool (Part 1 of 6), you can begin seeding. Your sheets have already been sprayed with 3% hydrogen peroxide and soaked for at least 15 minutes in cold water, which brings the rockwool down from its natural pH of about 8.0 to the target of 6.0. They come to the work table in a mesh tray set inside a non-draining tray, and you sow them there while the rockwool is still saturated. Follow the steps in Keeping your Flex Acre Clean before you begin.

Gather Tools:

  • 3% Hydrogen Peroxide
  • Tweezers
  • Knife
  • Labeling Tape
  • Spray Bottle
  • Water
  • Humidity Dome

Setting up your Work Area

  • Sanitize your work table.
  • Sanitize your tweezers and your knife.

Seed travels from the packet to the cube on your tweezers, never on a glove or a bare finger, so anything that will touch the sheet is sanitized before the seed comes out. Seed density changes with the crop, so read the heading for your crop before you open a packet. Sow into the rockwool supplied by Fork Farms. It is sized to your trays and holds water the way your system expects.

Seeding Lettuce

Lettuce is sown at the density below. Herbs, including basil, are covered under the next heading.

  • Place 1 to 2 lettuce seeds into each rockwool cube with your sanitized tweezers.
  • Press each seed lightly so it makes contact with the bottom of the cube.

Seeding Herbs

Herbs, including basil, are sown at the density below. Lettuce is covered under the heading above.

  • Place 3 to 5 herb seeds into each rockwool cube with your sanitized tweezers.
  • Press each seed lightly so it makes contact with the bottom of the cube.

Step video coming soon.

Herbs carry more seed per cube than lettuce does. Work one crop at a time and finish a tray before you switch, as a tray sown at two densities cannot be labeled honestly.

Cutting your Rockwool Sheet into Cubes

  • Cut the rockwool sheet into individual cubes with your sanitized knife.

Step video coming soon.

Cut the sheet now rather than later, as separated cubes are what let you lift one seedling at a time in Transplanting Seedlings into your Flex Acre (Part 5 of 6).

Labeling your Trays

  • Apply labeling tape to the tray.
  • Note the crop type, the amount, and the planting date on the tape.

Label the tray in the same session you sow it. The label is what ties the tray back to its seed lot, and a tray that reaches the Flex Micro unlabeled cannot be traced back to anything. Your planting date carries the most weight of the three, as your hold time in the Flex Micro and your transplant window both count forward from that date. Record the same details in your log. Follow the steps in Logging your Flex Acre Tasks & Readings.

Watering & Covering your Trays

  • Gently mist the seeds with water using a spray bottle until they are wet on all sides.
  • Lift the mesh tray to pour off the excess water sitting in the non-draining tray.
  • Place a humidity dome over the trays.

Your rockwool is already saturated from the soak, so the mist is for the seeds themselves, and each one needs to be wet on all sides. The water that runs off collects in the non-draining tray underneath, and lifting the mesh tray clear is the only way to pour it out.

Leave the dome in place for now. The dome holds moisture around your seeds while they germinate, and when it comes off is covered in the next article.

NOTE: The mesh tray rides inside the non-draining tray so it does not drip on the way to the Flex Micro.

Your trays are seeded, labeled, and covered. Well done!

Previous: Preparing & Sanitizing your Rockwool (Part 1 of 6)

Next: Germinating Seedlings in the Flex Micro (Part 3 of 6)