Edibles: Start exotic veggies from seed

If you'd like to raise the newest or most obscure tomatoes, peppers and other vegetables commonly grown from transplants, you'd better count on starting your own plants.

Nurseries and other plant sources typically offer familiar varieties they know will sell. It's not good business to be stuck with varieties that don't already have consumer confidence.

It's not hard to grow good starts. You'll need to buy some long-lasting equipment such as a heat mat and lights and a few supplies, such as planting mix and water-soluble fertilizer.

Then it's a matter of providing the required care. Here are a few tips for successful growing.

Know when you'll transplant the starts outdoors. For tomatoes and the cabbage family, your goal is to produce six- to eight-week-old, stocky starts. Peppers and eggplants should be a couple of weeks older and beans, squash, lettuces and melons a couple of weeks younger.

If you plan to set out tomato plants in early June, there's no point in starting seed indoors the first of March. By June, the starts would be overgrown.

Start seeds in a pasteurized seedling mix. Unpasteurized mixes may contain damping-off fungi and pathogens, which kill seedlings.

Plant more seed than the transplants you need. Some of the seed won't germinate. Clip out or carefully pull extra plants.

For warmth-loving plants such as tomatoes, peppers, melons and eggplants, a heat mat, though not a must, is a big help. With heat underneath, seed typically germinates a week earlier and initial growth is more vigorous. Even cool-season plants like lettuces and cabbage family crops germinate faster over a heat mat.

Use artificial light. The sunniest window in the Pacific Northwest doesn't admit light of sufficient intensity and duration to grow first-quality transplants. A combination of warm white and cool white fluorescent tubes works well, and these lights are reasonably priced in comparison with wide-spectrum tubes. Turn them on when you wake up in the morning and off when you retire for the night. That regimen should give the starts the 16 to 18 hours of light they need per day.

Keep the light just over the seedlings. Two or three inches is not too close. As the seedlings grow, move the lights up, but continue to keep them within several inches of the plants. If the plants are farther away from the light, they'll grow weak and lanky trying to reach it.

Help keep your transplants stocky by whisking them several times a week. Brushing them gently with a piece of paper qualifies. Apparently that amount of contact activates hormones in the plants that encourage compact growth.

Avoid any checks in plant growth. Your goal is steady, uninterrupted development. To get it, keep the seedlings fertilized with water-soluble fertilizer and never allow the soil to dry to the point that the seedlings wilt.

Before setting your seedlings outdoors in your garden, harden them off. A week to 10 days before you intend to transplant them, put the seedlings outside for an hour or two. Then bring them back inside. The next day give them a few more hours outside before bringing them in. Gradually increase their outdoor exposure until they're outside permanently. While they're getting used to outdoor conditions, stop fertilizing them and cut back on watering. These measures will produce hardy transplants that won't turn pale and flop over in their new, outdoor site.