I'm excited! Just the thought of starting the early garden brings a bounce to my step. So it was with great joy that I went to a local garden center this week to start gathering the supplies I was going to need to germinate this year's seed crop. If you've been gardening for any length of time, you may have most of what you need already on hand. But it's always worth a trip to the nursery to check if there's something new and dandy that will make our endeavors easier, faster or more successful.

If we look critically at what we need to start seeds indoors, I think we'll come up with a list that looks something like this:

• First, we need to determine which plants we want to grow from seed that need to be started ahead of outdoor planting weather.
• Then we'll want some type of container to hold some type of planting medium.
• Lastly, we'll have to provide a proper environment in which the seeds will germinate.

There are as many different ways to meet these needs as there are gardeners, and with each choice you make, you get to express your own gardening style. You can be an heirloom gardener using strips of sod dug from your lawn and turned upside down as your container, or be a high-tech fan employing self-contained, expandable jiffy-7 peat pellets in a heated mini greenhouse to get your results. Any way you choose to do it is fine, as long as it works!

When we think about containers and soil mixes, the key area of concern is sanitation. Damping-off, a fungal disease where the newly emerged seedlings fall over and die, is the result of using less than sparkling clean equipment. If you use a container that has been used before or has come in contact with dirt, be sure to wash it with a 10 percent bleach solution (9 parts water to 1 part bleach). Suitable containers can be nursery flats, multi-cell pony packs, or individual small pots. Material choice may be plastic, wood or clay.

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Choose your container size based on the size and number of seeds you're sowing, and the amount of room you want (or have!) to devote to all this. In the past, I've been guilty of starting so many plants that I've taken up almost all table space in the house with seedlings in various stages of development. No more. Now I only start the correct number of plants that I'm going to set out. No extras. No matter how many extra seeds are in the packet. That I might need. Just in case something goes wrong. Right.

Seed starting soils must be sterile, lightweight, hold water well yet dry out easily. There is no reason to fool around and not buy a commercially prepared seed starting mix unless you are starting thousands of seeds and cost is a factor. Then, buy your favorite houseplant soil and strain out the big particles. Or buy some peat and some fine vermiculite and mix together. Or use the vermiculite alone. It's all going to come close to the same cost and will work fine once you figure out its proper moisture level. Just be clean. Sanitary.

The greatest product ever invented to help you germinate seeds is the heat mat. Like an electric blanket for seeds, these plastic, waterproof mats provide warmth underneath the flat to gently coax the seed to life. They will warm the soil 10 to even 20 degrees warmer than the surrounding air, will cut germination times in half, increase germination percentage amazingly, and will do so on pennies a day. My local garden center offers a single flat model that uses 17 watts for $29.99 and a four flat beauty for $69.99. It may seem spendy at first, but they will probably last your gardening life, and save many more times that in wasted seeds that fail to sprout. Plus they can be used for other propagating techniques where we can really save big bucks. All in all, they are a veritable bargain.

I hope this has gotten you as excited as I am about starting seeds. Next time we'll look at timing our sowing and the different types of seeds available.

Stan Mapolski, aka The Rogue Gardener, can be heard from 9-11 a.m. Sunday mornings on KMED 1440 AM and seen in periodic gardening segments for KTVL Channel 10 News. Reach him at stanmapolski@yahoo.com.