Transplanting- Egg crates looking good.

I am not sure where I got the idea to start seedlings in paper egg cartons, but I know that I did it a few years ago when I had my first veggie garden and I started most plants from seed.  It worked great and so I decided to do it with some of my natives- mostly I did it to start my Silver Bush Lupine (Lupinus albifrons).

Last week, it seemed like a few of my L. albifrons were getting big enough for me to go ahead and transplant and so I wanted to share with you about how it all went.  First, I have to say that I am a rookie at this whole gardening thing and growing from seed and I didn't do things the way I should have.  I should have used seed starting mixture (there are all kinds and mostly mixes of sand, moss etc) instead of just nursery blend.  I also don't think that I did a good job of my scarification of my seeds for the Lupines and had a few germinate and then die.  I think that had I used a seed starter blend, I would have had fewer seedlings die.  That being said- the basic concept of planting in the egg cartons works great- they germinate and have no problem sending roots down through the carton.  I then just cut out the individual egg unit with a plant and put the whole thing in the ground.  No disturbing the roots and an easy transplant by just scooping out a little dirt with a spoon.  So, although I would do some things differently- I am whole heartedly advocating starting seeds in egg cartons and transplanting directly into the ground.  So far, so good.  It has been about a week now and my babies are thriving.

Seedling cut out from carton and ready
to transplant.

You can see the roots have started to grow
through the carton wall.

Used a spoon to scoop a small hole to
transplant the entire carton.  Peeled back
paper rim and just planted directly.

Little seedling is all nestled in and ready
to grow.

I have also started transplanting some of the other plants that I have grown in the flats but it has not been going quite as smoothly.  Mostly, I think that some of the problem rests from me disturbing the roots as I dig them up to transplant them.  I transplanted a few CA Bottlebrush Grass and it is just not happy. I also realize that, typical of me, I planted too many seeds in the flats and many have crowded each other out.  For those that did germinate well- I have too many plants in the flats.  For those that didn't, I blame my nursery mix and I should have too many crowding each other out.  Either way- I do think that I vastly prefer to plant in the egg cartons so that I can just transplant the whole gizmo without damaging the roots- I am not very patient OR very gentle...