You’ve decided to grow some plants just for your horse’s enrichment. Congratulations! Whether you are looking to add some extra plants to your yearly garden, or you’re brand new to growing anything other than maybe an occasional houseplant, you’re on the road to an abundance of new flavors, scents, and textures to work into your horse’s behavioral program.
In Part One, we looked at some of the options for growing, including what plants, how much to plant, and overall how to get a garden planned for success. In this article, you’ll learn how to start plants indoors, which is the method that I prefer when growing enrichment. We’ll cover why indoor starting works great for horsey gardens, where to get seeds, and what you need to make them grow.
Why start your enrichment garden inside?
Whether to start from seeds or transplants is a huge garden decision that will depend on your individual situation. While there are tons of resources available to help you decide which option might be better for you overall, in my opinion, starting from seed indoors is one of the best options for horse gardens specifically. Here’s why:
Multi-use
Working indoors can keep your garden going in all seasons. Once you have seeds and lights, you don’t just have to use your seed starting setup for growing baby plants to transplant to an outdoor garden. At times of year when you’re not working on new herbs to grow out for your horse, you can grow some plants all the way up to a usable size, right under your seed starting lights. For the amount of benefit you get, it’s worth starting an indoor setup for that reason alone.
Horse-Sized Garden, Tiny Expense
Since horses are so expensive anyway, why sink resources into something when there’s a less expensive alternative? Other than the one-time cost of buying whatever lights or container you need, starting seed is so much cheaper than working with transplants. For the price of a single parsley plant, you can get a whole packet of seeds that will probably grow as much parsley as your horse (and your kitchen) could possibly use in a year. Multiply this by every other type of plant you choose to grow and you can see the budget benefits, which is why I decided a couple years ago to put a growing light in a corner of my room. The trade-off, of course, is a few minutes of extra work while the seeds sprout and grow, but taking care of the little plants is incredibly therapeutic.
Easy Peasy
It’s not hard to start most horse-enrichment-friendly plants from seed. Herbs and flowers want to grow – seeds are little packets of plant potential that usually just need to find a friendly patch of dirt, and they’re off to the races. Most of the horse approved enrichment plants, like herbs, edible flowers, and grasses, are very easy to germinate and fast-growing, so there’s no reason to leave these up to professional growers. You can produce your own easily with minimal upkeep.
Starting indoors takes a lot of the uncertainty out of garden starting, too. The losses are much smaller compared to starting seeds outside, with less pampering than keeping up with a seedbed in an outdoor garden.
With the reasons why out of the way, here’s the scoop on how to get started by getting ahold of the seeds you want.
Ordering Seeds for the Equine Garden
There are several places you can get your seeds. Options are available for all garden-starting needs and priorities. Your main resources for enrichment-garden seeds will be:
- Seed companies and online/catalog orders
- Big-box retailers
- Local feed and hardware stores
Seeds from Catalogs
Online seed companies are a great resource because the quality of their seeds will be very high, and they will have more varieties available than your local stores. This is how I order almost all my seeds.
A quick Google search will bring up heaps of seed companies that offer their seeds online. But if you’ve never flipped through a printed seed catalog, I really recommend it! Seed catalogs are a neat leftover from pre-internet times; just request the catalog from the website and you’ll have a booklet of pure plant eye candy in your mailbox in a week or two. Practically speaking, they make it very easy to read descriptions of each variety of plant and see which one is best for your situation. I usually order seeds online, but I pick out the ones I want from looking at printed catalogs.
Big-Box Retailers
Packets of seed will also be available at local large stores and home improvement centers. Anywhere with a garden shop will have seeds, we’ve all seen them on their racks in the store. This can be a great way to pick up most of your enrichment garden needs since most of us are in stores like this regularly. On the minus side, variety will be limited, and the types of veggies and herbs might not be best for your area or a horse-specific garden. A plug-and-play seed packet shelf at the local megamart may be full of varieties that don’t grow well in your area, resulting in poor success and not enough harvest for horse enrichment. But if you know what you’re looking for, this can be a decent way to get seeds in a pinch.
Local hardware, garden, and feed stores
For a more hometown approach, try sourcing your enrichment garden seeds from the local agricultural or hardware store. Apart from supporting local business, these stores will often have varieties of plants that are well-suited to your growing area. Many of them also offer seeds in bulk, where you buy the seed by weight. Online stores and big-box shops won’t offer this option. The bulk bins can be a fantastic source for horse-specific gardens since you’ll be able to get just as much as you need – and the price is often best this way.
The local shops will also be the best source for many of the fodder or forage based seeds for enrichment, again generally sold by weight or in larger quantities. Most heirloom seed companies online will also sell grass or other seeds as cover crops, but typically the local agricultural store will be the most budget-friendly resource for grain and grass seed.
Your Garden-Starting Setup
Your seed starting setup can be as basic and compact or as large and complex as you like. It all depends on how much you want to grow at one time. There’s also nothing wrong with starting small, testing the waters, and growing a little bit more in each season – so feel free to jump in with a small plug-and-play kit for a season before deciding if you want something bigger or more complicated.
A seed starting setup for horse enrichment isn’t any different from a regular garden setup, and there are many resources that will cover the topic in enormous detail online. Since I’m growing plants for equine enrichment purposes, I’ll cover just the basics along with the details of my setup. The fundamentals you’ll need are a source of light, containers to put the dirt in, and the dirt itself – not too difficult!
There are affiliate links in the section below for sources of the supplies I use in my own enrichment garden. Purchases made through those links can help support Enriching Equines.
The Lights
The only requirements for your light are that it be adjustable in some way (so that you can raise it as the little plants grow) and powerful enough to provide your baby plants with the light they need. These days it’s easy to find LED growing lights that are both very powerful and very energy efficient, but you can also use fluorescent tubes.
You can get started with a complete kit that includes an LED light sized correctly for the containers included in the kit, like this one. This is the AeroGarden, and it accepts standard size nursery flats – a great way to pack more little plants into your growing space.
Indoor starter kits like this are a great way to get your foot in the door with seed starting, and you can also use them to grow some plants (like herbs) up to a usable size.
In my setup, I use LED strip lights mounted over shelves. The lights are adjustable by changing the length of the chain they hang from. I use these utility lights and they have been fantastic for several seasons. They last forever, work great with timers, can be linked together, and put out a fantastic amount of light for the little plants.
The containers
You can use any container you like for starting seeds. If you’re on a budget, this is a great place to stretch your thrifting muscle, and you can also get a lot of mileage out of purchasing containers if you want to go that route. Lots of gardeners DIY it by using cut up milk jugs, food containers and drinking cups. The plants won’t care – as long as they don’t have soggy roots, that is, so be sure to include some kind of tray or saucer under your containers so that you can place drainage holes in the plant growing containers themselves.
If you buy a kit, such as a container with an integrated light, this part will be taken care of for you.
If you are doing a DIY setup and want the most plant bang for your buck, which I definitely recommend when growing plants for horse enrichment, consider getting some nursery trays and seed starting packs. Sometimes, if you ask at the local garden center, they’ll give these to you for free! Or, if you do your own gardening or landscaping at home, you can save the containers that your plants come in, clean them, and use them for your seeds.
When I started my indoor gardening setup, I bought my own trays and seed cell packs, and haven’t looked back. I use these trays and these cell packs from Amazon. While being eco-conscious is very important to me, I have found I’m able to reuse these trays and cell packs over and over. Biodegradable packs can be an excellent choice as well, but you’d have to purchase new ones every year. If you’re buying supplies, the choice is yours – the seeds won’t care either way.
The Dirt
“Dirt” can be a generous word here. Many serious gardeners won’t use garden soil at all for starting seeds, since there is some risk of introducing disease or fungus that can harm delicate seedlings.
I will be the first to admit that I don’t bubble wrap horses or seedlings, so I absolutely do use garden soil for some plant starting. But I tend to go that route with plants that I know are easy to start and hardy. For more delicate seeds that take a longer period to sprout or have more fiddly requirement, I use real seed starting media.
If you are using soil, make sure that it is fine textured and loose. You want the best stuff you can pull out of the garden and a nice fine texture so that it holds plenty of moisture and the seedling can get a good start. Don’t use soil with a rocky, rough texture or with lots of uncomposted pieces of material in it.
A more foolproof option is a seed starting media of some sort. I have always had great results with this product, but many gardeners use peat or compressed coconut fiber plugs.
Get Started
Once you have a light, a container, some dirt, you’re ready to go!
Fill your containers with whatever media you’re using and make sure the mix is settled and smooth.
Then, put your seeds in the media according to the instructions that come on the seed pack,
. Pay attention to the depths intructions – some seeds can be picky about being buried at the correct depth – and cover the seeds with starting media or soil. Mist gently to settle them in. Make sure they stay damp for as long as it takes them to germinate. This might involve misting from a spray bottle regularly, say twice a day, or paying attention to how much water is in the bottom of your growing trays if you’re using those. Most horse friendly enrichment plant options don’t take very long to sprout.
You’ll want your lights to be extremely close to the seedlings, about 2 in from their leaves, so that the little plants get the right amount of light to grow correctly. If your lights are too far away from your seedlings, they will grow spindly and thin. This can also be a sign of light that isn’t powerful enough for your baby plants, if the light is at the correct distance from the plants. Raise the height of the light as the little plants grow, which will be fast! They really take off once they pass the seedling stage. Be sure to keep up with watering as they put down roots, but the careful not to overwater. just like sodden ground isn’t good for horses feet, it’s not great for your plants feet either. Overwatering can result in root rot or drowned seedlings.
If you’ve started with quality seed and good dirt, and are diligent in keeping them watered, it won’t take long for you to feel like you have more plants than you know what to do with. When they outgrow their seed starting trays, it will be time to introduce them to the garden.. or to an enrichment item for your horse! At that point, the choice will be yours.
It’s always a thrill to see the little seedlings emerge from the soil. And the best part is that once the setup is done and the seeds have sprouted, half the battle is won – just keep up with the watering and you’ll have garden-ready plants in no time. And after that, it will be time to use the fruits (or veggies or herbs) of your labor for some excellent and engaging homegrown enrichment for your horse!
I’m starting this season’s enrichment garden right now, so do check back frequently for horse gardening updates and more enrichment ideas to bring out the best natural behaviors in your equine companion.
Happy gardening!