Pre-season Garden Ideas: Starting Your Plants from Seed

My Pre-season Garden Ideas

I love sharing ideas about gardening, and now is a good time to talk reasons to consider starting your flower or vegetable gardens from seed. Once you know what they are, you can determine whether you’d like to try some indoor seeding yourself this season.

1. There are infinitely more varieties of plants available to you if you start from seed. Starting a less common variety from seed will allow you to experiment with different vegetables and vegetable varieties. As well, you’ll find that you can add to your flower gardens interesting and unusual blooms in great colors. For those looking to branch out from more common plants, indoor seeding is a great option.

2. Because many of the more interesting varieties of plants are native to southernly regions, direct seeding outdoors would not allow the seeds a long enough growing season to mature. These more exotic plants must be started indoors.

3. You really can save some money once you’ve got yourself an indoor setup.

4. Your indoor-started plants will mature earlier than those that you would direct seed in the ground. This offers you faster blooms and earlier vegetables.

5. Any perhaps my favorite reason: Caring for seedlings and watching them grown in the cold, overcast season is great for the soul!

If you’ve never grown indoors before, here’s what you need to start your plants from seed indoors and pre-season.

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Basic Needs for Seeding Indoors

• Seeds
• Seeding trays (or pots)
• Seed-starting mix (seeding soil)
• Seed markers
• Sunlight

 

• Optional: Grow lights
• Optional: Grow light timer
• Optional: Moisture Meter
• Optional: Potmaker (use your old newspaper to make biodegradable, plantable, seed-starting pots!)

 

Start with Your Seeds

You may already know what you want to grow or you may enjoy the process of discovering new varieties of plants to experiment with. If you know what you want to grow and it’s a common variety, you can look for seeds at your local nursery, hardware store or buy them online.

If you’re not sure what you want to grow, there are tons of great resources for figuring out what you might try. Here are some of my favorite “Seed Finder Tools” for helping to determine what varieties you might consider:

1. Seeds Now Seed Finder: You select your growing zone, the plant type and up to two seed personality traits (likes full sun, super easy to grow, etc.).
2. Wildflower Farm Seed Selector Tool: Select your soil type, sunlight and moisture conditions, your state, your color preferences, height desired and bloom time.

 

Online Seed Vendors

1. Seeds Now: They offer raw, untreated “organic” seeds
2. Wildflower Farm: Organically grown, non-GMO, North American native wildflower seeds
3. My Patriot Supply: Offering heirloom and organic seeds (flowers and vegetables), teas and medicinal herbs.
4. Eden Brothers: Offering thousands of heirloom seeds, including flowers, wildflowers, vegetables, herbs and organic seeds. They also have bulbs.
5. Burpee: Offers seeds for vegetables, flowers, perennials, herbs, heirlooms, fruits, organics and also offers a whole lot of equipment and advice, making it a great resource.
6. The Shop at Monticello: Offers annual, biennial and perennial flower seeds, and vegetable and herb seeds from the Thomas Jeffereson Center for Historic Plants
7. Annie’s Heirloom Seeds: Offers heirloom and organic seeds and gardening supplies (including mushroom kits)and gardening information.
8. Heirloom Seeds: Offers 1450+ varieties of heirloom seeds that are open-pollinated, non-GMO and untreated.
9. Seed Savers Exchange: Operates to “protect American’s garden heritage by growing seeds with a story.” You can browse their homegrown seeds and research commerical seeds. They have more than 40,000 varieties that have been grown or cataloged.

 

Next Steps: Follow Seed Packet Instructions

• Plant your seeds according to the instructions on the seed packet. A good majority of seeds will emerge in under 21 days.
• Offer water and light according to the needs of that variety; thin the seeds as instructed.
• In most cases, when the danger of frost has passed, you can start to either move your seedlings outside to their permanent home or begin the process of “hardening off” the tender plants, depending on your plant’s needs. Hardening off is a way of acclimating your plants from their stable indoor growing environment to the fluctuations of an outdoor climate.

To harden off your plants:

1. Do it gradually over a period of a week or two
2. Begin on a mild day with a couple of hours of sun in a wind-free location
3. Increase exposure to sunlight a few hours at a time
4. Keep each individual variety’s hardiness in mind; some plants can tolerate dips into the 40s and other, more tender, less hardy varieties may not. Your seed instructions will guide you.
5. Gradually increase exposure to cold and the elements.
6. After transplanting, fertilize lightly to reduce the effects of shock and give them a watering.

And there you have it: The basics of indoor seeding to outdoor transplanting. Hope you enjoy discovering what could turn out to be a new passion. And don’t forget to let us know if you uncover any varieties of plants or vegetables that you’re particularly excited about; we’d love to hear about them!