Another year, another seed starting method

So it's a little late if you're starting seeds now, and you should probably consider heading to your local nursery to pick up some seedlings in a few weeks; but we're moving soon so I want to keep my seedlings small so they don't get damaged.

Every year so far, I've tried a different seed starting method

Year 0: In the ground

You can't see it in the picture,
 but this
corn plant had to be
double-staked to keep
from falling over &
only gave one ear
because it was planted
 in a peat-pot.

This was a bad idea. In Ottawa the weather does not get warm until late May/June, in fact we had a snow storm last April. There are some vegetables you can/should start in the ground, but around here, Tomatoes are not one of them. I ended up with seeds that were flooded and washed out so they were all over the place, and most didn't germinate because of the cold temperatures or rotting in the soil.

Year 1: In peat pots
Who ever thought this was a good idea?? There is a reason there are so many mummies pulled out of peat bogs. Peat pots are just about the worse thing to start your seeds in. They don't degrade in the soil so your plant's roots get bound up in the peat pot so you can't remove them without killing your plant; or they prevent the plant roots from growing so badly they won't reach full production & are very unstable.

Year 2: In plastic flats

I'm pretty neutral about plastic flats, I know some people really like them, and they make it easy to heat the seedlings, but they aren't my favourite. I find the plants difficult to get out with out damaging the seedlings, but your success my vary greatly with the type of plastic flats you have.

Year 2: Newspaper pots
So after finding a nifty gadget in the seed catalogue (I'm so glad I didn't buy!) and watching some you-tube videos, I decided I wanted to try these guys out but I was so disappointed! They seems like a great way to start your seeds so I spent hours making tons of little tiny pots, only to have them disintegrate the minute I tried to water my seedlings.
I ended up transplanting everything into half plastic water bottles, which actually worked quite well.


Year 3: Cardboard Tubes

This year, I'm trying a variation on the newspaper pots, cardboard toilet paper tubes. I've been squirreling them away all winter (so if you don't have a large family, this may be prohibitive) and I collected about 2 dozen non-bleached tubes.
Planting the seeds was a lot messier then I had planned! But I made a little funnel out of some glossy junk mail, and that helped keep the soil in the tubes. I'm keeping all my tubes on an old baking sheet & being very careful not to move them around too much (not to mention moving them to the new house, haven't quite figured that one out yet).
Hopefully the cardboard will prove to be much stronger then the newsprint of year 2 & easier to remove the seedlings from then year 1.