Using Perfect starts to get your seeds started
By Eric McIntyre, TechnologyGarden.net
published 4-13-2008

When gardening using Hydroponics and Aeroponics, a gardener has 2 choices when choosing crops – Starting your own seeds or taking cuttings from already established plants. In this tutorial , we will show you how to use the popular Perfect Starts starting plugs to get your seedlings ready for transplanting into your Hydroponics or Aeroponic System.

You first need to select your seeds – in this example we are growing several varieties of lettuce, basil, cilantro, hot peppers and some tomatoes. Some of these varieties will be transplanted into a lettuce raft type system, and some will be moved into an aeroponic system like the AeroSpring.

Perfect starts are composted material that is formed into a spongy “plug” with a hole in the middle. They are held together by some sort of polymer, hold a perfect ratio of air and water and are a safe for use in any garden. See the perfect start shown below for an example

Perfect Starts are composted material designed for starting seeds

The Perfect starts are a few inches long and in my case, they are too long for my starter trays. I take a paper plate or other suitable cutting surface and a very sharp knife. I then take the perfect start and cut it into 3 shorter discs. These smaller discs seem to work perfectly and I get 3 seed starters for each perfect start cutting my overall costs. See the shots below on how I cut my perfect starts.

Perfect Starts can be cut into smaller discs if they are too long

A full size Perfect Start is cut into 3 smaller discs

Once my Perfect starts are all cut, I lay out my perfect start discs and get my starting trays cleaned and ready. I then place my seeds out on another paper plate and slowly transfer ONE seed into each perfect start. If the perfect start discs don’t have a hole in the middle for the seed, I use the tip of a knife to make a hole and rip the center so I can plop a seed in there. See the shot below that shows a tomato seed on top of each perfect start disc – getting ready to push them into the middle of each disc

Perfect Starts and tomato seeds – preparing to push the seeds into the perfect starts

I get each seed into the perfect start disc. If the hole on the disc is too large and the seed easily falls into the middle of the disc, I’ll rip off a tiny bit of the edge and jam that into the hold after the seed is placed. This keeps it dark and also prevents the disc from evaporating too quickly.

Perfect Starts with tomato seed in the middle ready for the move into the starting tray

Now that all my seeds are inserted into the perfect start discs, I carefully place each perfect start into a slot in the tray. Once they are firmly in there, I’ll then take a sprayer from my kitchen sink and get the water tempa above 70 degrees (F) and gently spray the perfect starts. DO NOT SATURATE the tray with water, you want a quick and gentle spray.

Perfect Starts have been moved to starting tray and gently sprayed

Put the top on your starting tray and place this in a warm place. Seed starting mats are a good solution, but since my cable box/DVR is almost always generating heat, I place my starting tray on top. This generates a nice warm heat from the bottom of the tray and with the cover on, you can see the warm humid air covering the top. See the shot below for an example – if you do not see this on the cover of your starting tray, you may not have good luck getting your seeds started.

The Seed starting tray fogs up with warm humid air – a perfect condition for starting seeds

Check the tray each day and make sure you keep the perfect starts moist, but not soaking wet. Every few days I’ll spray them again with a quick and gentle spray of warm water from the tap – DO NOT FERTILIZE – the seedlings are very delicate at this stage and plain water will do. After a few days – depending on the type of seeds, you should start to see the seeds pop through. The example below shows tomato seeds after almost 2 weeks in the starting tray – they are ready for transplanting into a hydroponic or aeroponic system (or soil)

Perfect Starts with tomato seeds popping up after a week or warm and moist conditions

The seedlings can be pick up and carefully handled at this stage. It’s important that you leave the seedlings in the tray until proper roots develop as shown in the shot below. This will give the seedling a better chance to survive the transplant into your hydroponic or aeroponic system.

Perfect Start showing tomato seedling with excellent root development

Perfect Start showing tomato seedling with excellent root development

Perfect Start showing tomato seedling with excellent root development

Links:  I get my Perfect Starts from the guys over at FutureGarden.com

Stay tuned for our next tutorial, transplanting these seedlings into netcups and then into your hydroponic or aeroponic system!