Start Peanut Seedlings

I'm lucky that my school provides healthy lunches for everyone on campus. It's not as varied as it used to be. We can't wander around all the stations choosing what we want, mixing from the salad station, entrées, grill options, and sandwiches. Now, we get meals in compostable boxes that don't get composted. I've tried composting the boxes in my bokashi bin (see my Instructable). They don't seem to break down very well so I wanted to try and find a different use for them.

There are a lot of demonstrations of how to start seeds with paper towels and plastic containers. Here's a great example. Many examples employ reusable food packaging containers to create the greenhouse effect, but most use fresh paper towels for the moisture. I experimented with both the paper towel and the compostable container inside reused plastic storage containers.

The purpose of starting your seeds in the little cups is so that when you plant them in soil, you are only planting the seeds that have already germinated. This saves a lot of space. Read on to learn how I reused packaging to start peanuts.

- Raw peanuts in the shell (buy specifically for growing here)

- Compostable food packaging or paper towels

- Plastic containers with tight fitting lids

- Glass of clean water

- Scissors

- Labeling tools

- Seed starting potting mix

- Seedling fertilizer

- Empty soda or water bottles

- Box cutter

Tear the compostable container into pieces that will fit in the bottom of your plastic containers. Place them in a glass of water to soak. They need to be really wet so soak them for several minutes. The paper towel is easier. It only needs to be wet enough that it doesn't drip when you place it in the container.

Carefully remove the shell from the peanuts. Do not remove the seed coat, the papery skin. If you break the seed coat, they are less likely to germinate. Compost the shells!

Place a piece of dripping compostable container in the bottom of the little plastic tub. Drop a few seeds on to it; you can use more seeds if you use bigger containers. There should be some moisture in the bottom of the container. For the peanuts, I put wet compostable container or paper towel above and below the seeds - kind of like a wet material and seed sandwich. After you add your material and your seeds, close the lid tightly and label with the type of plant and date.

Peanuts want a warm place to germinate. I put the containers on top of the water heater tank in a closet with the washer and dryer. It's the warmest place in the house. It is steadily at about 74 degrees F. The door to the closet was closed most of the time.

At this stage, the seeds should be in darkness because they would normally be under soil. Different seeds will have different germination temperatures and times. Some may want to be in the refrigerator so be sure to investigate!

They are ready to pot in soil when they have a little root. The peanuts took four days to sprout.

In keeping with my ideal of reusing or recycling, I planted the peanuts that sprouted in a pot that I found abandoned in my neighborhood and single-use soda bottles that I cut apart. Use seedling mix or fine compost. Starter plant food is optional. I mixed a tablespoon of the plant food into the soil when it was about half full. Then I added another layer of soil so the new roots wouldn't be touching the food yet. I should have added water at this point but I didn't.

Press the sprouted seeds into the soil gently with the root down. Add another half inch of soil on top and press it down lightly. Spray the top of the soil with a mist of water. Instead of buying a plant spray bottle, clean and repurpose a spray bottle from a household cleaner.

TMBORT's Self Watering Pot is a better pot than my design. I should have added water to my soil before I put the peanuts in and used the bottom of the bottle as a reservoir. Soil has the right amount of moisture when it holds together when you squeeze it, but falls apart when you poke it. How much you water will depend on how dry your environment is. My environment is dry so I mist once a day.

Put the plants in a sunny window and use additional light once they have some leaves showing. Once the seedlings are nice and sturdy, plant them in bokashi soil in totes or outside in the ground after the last frost. Good luck starting your garden!