Coffee Filter Seed Starting

The kids and I are going to start our seeds today using coffee filters. I set up a seed starting station in the kitchen. Each child has coffee filters, a plate, a bowl filled with water, ziplock bags and a permanent marker. The dip a coffee filter in the bowl of water and then lay it flat on the plate. They drop a bunch of seeds on one half of the coffee filter and fold the filter in half. Then they put it in the ziplock bag and label it. Voila!

From there they go under the grow lights. It takes about one to two weeks to sprout, but it's like magic to the kids. Once they are sprouted and have the first true leaves, we gently transplant them into seed pellets.

Seeds that were started by the coffee filter method:

Beans

Broccoli

Brussell Sprouts
Cauliflower

Cucumbers

Parsley
Peppers

Pumpkin

Tarragon
Tomato

We don't use the coffee filter method for lettuce since the seeds are so tiny and when they do sprout they are too tiny to pick off the filter without damaging them. To start lettuce we use recyclable containers (such as cool whip, cottage cheese, or yogurt) and seed them pretty thick. Once they grow up couple inches, we transplant them directly outside.