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hi this is Nate store here with Bri
agretech and today I'm going to tell you
why using plugs is a good
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idea a lot of folks when they're just
looking at getting started with an
aquaponic system or with vertical Towers
ask about direct seating while you can
always direct seat and that's fine and
dandy it's not always the best use of
space so if you do seed um directly to
your bed or to your Tower often times uh
you're you're wasting the space in that
bed or in that Tower while that seedling
while that seed germinates and that
seedling grows so the reason that uh we
like to put seedlings in is that it just
ends up conserving a lot of space for us
we can grow seedlings in these really
dense trays and then um you know as soon
as they're ready to transplant we just
transplant them to the bed or to the um
Tower and we're not wasting any space we
can transplant them right on the heels
of the former crop and we're not waiting
for them to germinate so we can uh for
like a 60-day lettuce or a 70-day
lettuce they can do their first 35 days
in a tray and then they can just do
their last you know 30 or 35 in the
towers themselves so we use a few
different types of trays here um we've
got a 338 here and uh it's just
basically means there's uh 338 cells in
this one and this is a 200 so we've got
200 cells in this tray and uh what we do
is we just take these trays we fill them
up either with vermac compost or with a
potting mix vermac compost is a little
richer if you use a potting mix then you
might have to supplement some nutrition
either mix in some vermac compost or
fertilize your seedlings but uh you you
basically uh mix that into these trays
and um essentially once you got the tray
full we just run through with their
fingers go
pop pop now the big guys uh with big
operations they have machines that do
all this work for them uh big vacuum
seeders and all that kind of thing and
actually building your own vacuum seater
isn't too hard we just never uh really
uh do enough seeding to make it worth it
so I've got two different types of seed
here and um we we plant a lot of lettuce
a lot of greens and um especially for
crops like lettuce crops like carrots
crops where the seeds are very tiny and
very difficult to manage um we do
recommend using pelleted seeds so on
this one you see here it says lettuce
pelleted um and we do buy a lot of hais
seed um this is what it looks like they
take basically take clay and they wrap
it around that um they roll that uh seed
in that clay and you end up with this
nice easy to handle large uh ball of
clay and you just plant these and you
get the singles every time you don't end
up doubling so you don't have to go back
through and thin um when you use just
regular lettuce seed often times this
was uh one of the guys planting got a
little bit sloppy and you can see here
we've got a big mess when it comes to
the lettuce we've got so we're going to
have to go back through here and pull
out a lot of different seedlings in
every different cell so what that means
is we've just got a lot of waste there
um because the seed's so tiny and to
show you what that lettuce seed looks
like here I'm going to pour some of this
in my hand so get rid of that pelleted
stuff and uh this is uh just regular
lettuce seed here and you can see how
tiny that is it's really hard to hard to
mess with um SE seeds like carrots and
there are a few other crops that are
similar you know it's just worth getting
pelleted if you can find it you're going
to save uh it's going to cost you a
little bit more but you're going to save
yourself a lot of time um thinning and a
lot of time messing around with itty
bitty little
seeds so once you got some divots poked
in the tops of your cells with your
fingers go ahead and drop a seed in each
one and then we're just going to cover
it over lightly with um potting mix and
for just about all the seeds we grow
here uh there's all sorts of variable
depths that you're supposed to plant
seeds at and it's worth reading the
packaging to find out but for the most
part we just plant everything at about
1/4 in and it does just fine so uh once
it's planted we cover it over we kind of
uh smooth off the top we water it and we
just set it out here on our bch and it
just gets watered once a day and um or
several times a day uh essentially you
know just sits here until it till it
grows into a nice healthy seedling and
then we transplant it save ourselves a
lot of time save ourselves a lot of
money and we get the most use out of our
grow beds our Towers whatever we're
using so this is our Verma compost and
and it's a pretty nutrient Rich
sometimes we use this for seeding um we
just don't produce enough of it these
days to keep up with our uh crops so uh
this is still pretty coarse stuff it
needs to break down a little bit longer
but once it's broken down a little bit
further we can actually spread this in
inside of seed trays and uh plug trays
and start to plant to it this here is
just our regular potting mix and you can
see it's just got uh basically it's kind
of a Pete per light and uh uh mostly
Pete perlite and some composted Forest
Products uh so that's just basically
chipped composted wood but it's pretty
fine and uh for doing seedlings you want
pretty nice fine stuff um stuff that
doesn't hold too much water it's not
going to rot your seeds but it's still
pretty fine uh textured stuff there's a
lot of contact um with the with the uh
mix itself once the seeds in there helps
it germinate a little fast helps it get
cranking so that's basically how we seed
I uh hope that you consider it in the
future it will save you a lot of time
and uh probably save you some money if
you're buying your your plugs so again
this is Nate store with briet agch
thanks for watching and uh if you uh
enjoy these videos If you find the
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free to ask us questions we're happy to
answer those as best we can so this is
our Greenhouse here we just came in
through the front door and this is kind
of looking East
um down the rows and Columns of uh
Towers here so come on in and I'll
explain how everything
works so now we're at the far end of the
greenhouse and you can see uh some of
the new towers that have just gone in uh
this last week and uh some of the stuff
that went in the week before over here
and uh