Ready, Set, Sow!
- Erica & Mike
- Mar 21, 2022
- 4 min read
Updated: May 16, 2022
It's that time of year again - SEED STARTING! Hardware stores and greenhouses alike are abuzz with new products, soil, gardening decorations, and most importantly, SEEDS. Before you run to your vehicle and speed down to your local store, here are a few questions we would like to answer about seed starting to help the gardening community shop with an informed mind (and green thumb!)
Why are we starting our seeds indoors?
First of all, starting your seeds yourself makes it easy to plant any hard-to-find varieties. You'll likely find fewer than a dozen varieties available as plants at your local garden center, but hundreds more are available as seeds. This year we are proud to support a local seed company to us here in Canada! You can save money too, a pack of seeds costs a few dollars and usually contains a dozen or more seeds, a single plant often costs more than an entire pack! I think it will be particularly rewarding for us to grow a plant from seed to harvest.
What seeds are easiest to start indoors?
If you're new to seed starting, start with easy, reliable seeds, including tomato, peas, cucumbers, and zucchini: these all germinate readily and grow quickly (especially peas!). Once you've mastered these, you can try your hand at more challenging plants. This year our tomato and peppers seem to be doing amazingly well! We chose to seed peppers early as they take longer to mature and we wanted to get a head-start to reap the benefits come harvest time.
The tomato varieties we picked this year are Moneymaker (Slicing), Amish Paste (Paste), Sweet Million (Cherry), and Golden Nugget (Cherry). For peppers, we chose California Wonder (Bell), Jalapeno M (Hot), and Red Bull's Horn (Hot).
When should I sow my seeds?
When you're starting seeds indoors, timing is everything. The goal is to grow seedlings that are the ideal size for transplanting into the garden at the proper time. Sowing dates depend entirely on a few things, including your last frost date, cool or warm growing condition preference, and how quickly the seed germinates and grows. Most seed packets suggest a planting time, such as "Start seeds indoors 6-8 weeks before your average last frost date." To calculate your planting date, start by determining your average last spring frost date, mark it on a calendar, and count back in one-week increments. We live in zone 8B so our last frost date for this year is April 21, 2022!
Can I grow on a windowsill or do I need special grow lights?
Although it's possible to grow seedlings on a sunny windowsill, you will get much better results if you grow them under lights. Sunlight in early spring isn't nearly as intense as the summer sun, and the days are shorter, too, leading to a lack of adequate sunlight your seedlings need to thrive. Seedlings growing on a windowsill will reach for the sun, resulting in long, weak stems that bend toward the light. Plants grown under the consistent, bright fluorescent grow lights of a greenhouse, on the other hand, will have strong, stocky stems that will adapt better once they're transplanted into the garden. We have two setups this year for our seedlings; one is in a cheap plastic greenhouse that my brother added some plastic LED light strips to, while the other is a grow tent with all the bells and whistles. To be honest the seedlings grown in the cheap greenhouse have much better growth in both size and germination.
What type of pot should I use?
Although you can start seeds in any container that has drainage holes, specially designed seed-starting pots and trays provide optimal conditions. These let you start lots of seeds in a small space, and they drain freely to prevent rot. To start this year, we have chosen to go with some seed trays to determine how these work in our small setup. With the current success of the seedlings, we will have to transplant them sooner than expected since they are quickly outgrowing their trays! We may need to transplant these into larger seed trays to prevent root constriction before our seeds are ready to hit outside soil. Be creative with this step - we chose to use red solo cups we bought in bulk from Costco, an drilled drainage holes in their bottoms in case we accidentally overwater.
How deeply do I plant the seeds?
Most seed packets tell you how deep to sow the seeds. Take care not to plant seeds too deep, or your seed will run out of food before it reaches the light and grows big enough to start producing its own. Some seeds require light to germinate (the seed packet should say this) and should be sown on the surface of the planting mix.
What is "hardening off" and how do I do it?
Hardening off is simply getting the plants used to the new outdoor conditions. Seedlings grown indoors have been babied: you've been giving them just the right amount of light, moisture, and nutrients. Outdoor conditions are more challenging, with changing temperatures and light levels, variable soil nutrient conditions, and moisture, not to mention other environmental conditions like wind and heavy rain. This year, a week before we plan to set the seedlings into the garden, we will start hardening them off. To do this we will open our seed growing window for a few hours, then close it at night. This way, slowly over a week, we can expose them to more and more to the milder temperatures. Traditionally, people will take their seeds outside for a few hours a day to see the sun and get some wind on their stems, but with the large number of seeds we have, it would be too much to ask our family to move them every day.
Hopefully, these notes help you get a head start on your garden this year. We would love to see your indoor starts - send us some pics! If this information was helpful to you, pass it along to your friends and family! Our goal is to encourage more families to grow food for themselves - whether that be on a patio, staircase, or backyard.
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