Spring Seeding

I've been wanting to do a post about how to grow vegetables from seed. While not very seasoned with this I thought I would take the time to at least share what I have learned to this point. I'll take you through the steps that I followed to get to this point. I'll direct you to some web sites that I found that really helped me (especially if you live in TX). I have tried some things and failed at some things, but some things have worked out really well for me. So here we go:

Find out what your planting zone is. There are a million of these zone maps out there and they are all very similar. A pretty generic route to find this out is just to go to a seed house's web site and look at there's, burpee's is here. Like I said this is pretty generic, so your next, probably better, option is to locate your planting zone by your zip code. This will further refine your planting zone. In my research I found that Texas A&M, which most of you know is an agricultural and mechanical school, has an amazing resource available to the public, Aggie Horticulture. If you live in TX this resource is invaluable. They break down further planting zones within TX, I happen to be zone III, and they research each zone and planting times by variety. The depth of there research is pretty astounding. There is plenty of information on this site, not just for TX gardeners. If you don't live in Texas, find a university in your state that is known for there agricultural program and see what resources they have available to the public.

After you have learned your planting zone, you need to find out what the last average frost date for your area is. This will help know when you can start seeding your plants both indoors and out. A good spot to start is the Farmer's Almanac. Just click your state on the map and choose the date for the city that you live or the city that is closest to you geographically. It also offers the dates for the first frost of the season, good to know for fall seeding, which I haven't tried yet but will certainly give a shot later this year.

Now we know our last frost date of the year, we need to select our varieties we want to seed. Everything doesn't need to be started indoors early, but it does have its advantages. Like giving your tomatoes a longer growing season. I suppose thats the biggest reason, especially if you live in Alaska or Wisconsin where your growing season is only four months long. Getting a jump on things would be huge. Most seeds need to be started 6 to 8 weeks before your last frost. There are some seeds that only require 4 weeks and I'm sure there are some that need 10, but a good rule of thumb would be 6 to 8 weeks.

I'm using a Jiffy Greenhouse, but you could just about use anything you could put a clear cover on. I was thinking you could use old paper egg carton's to start seed in and then cut the sections apart and plant with the paper attached. This seems like a good idea, I'm not sure, maybe I'll try it and see how those plants do. It's a great form of recycling and thats a big part of organic gardening. You just need to either have pellets that you wet and they expand to plant in, or some good organic compost or planting mix. Do not use soil, soil compacts and restricts root growth.

Now we're ready to begin the seeding process. Make sure your pellets or planting mix is plenty moist without being soggy. I have had some fuzzy stuff growing on the top of my pellets because they were too wet or were inside their greenhouse too long. Open the soil in a line across the top of the planting area. I've been using a small spoon to make that line. About 1/4" or 1/2" is the right depth to plant your seeds. Any shallower and the seedlings will just topple over and expose there roots once they emerge. I know that because with my first round of seeds I only put about an 1/8" under the top of the pellet. Place 3 or 4 seeds in each opening, now cover the seeds with the mixture that you separated to drop the seeds in. Cover the top of your greenhouse with the plastic top, place near a north or south facing window and leave alone. Your seedlings will emerge in about 4 days.

Once all of the seedlings have emerged let them get at least 1" tall and transfer to a different container and start your next batch. This usually takes about 10 days for all the seedlings to be ready. In this photograph you can see that some of the seedlings have emerged and some have not, but I won't move them until all of them have shown there pretty little heads.
Once the seedlings have all grown to 1" or 2" I move them to a separate container next to a window. I open the blinds on the window every morning and evening to give the seedlings plenty of light. As the seedlings continue to grow, you will notice that some of them appear stronger than others. I pinch off the ones that don't look as strong until each pellet has two strong little ones. Here's a photograph of my second seedling home.

Take good notes on the dates that you planted your seeds that way you know when you hit the 6 week mark. Not only that but this is a learning process, I keep notes on everything. The variety of seed I used, the date I seeded, when and where I'm intending on planting. Anything that I believe could be helpful in the future. Once you have hit the 5 week mark, you can begin to harden the plants off. Hardening the plants off is a process where you take the plants outdoors in the morning and place them in a shady location and bring them inside in the evening for a week prior to planting. This allows the plants to get accustomed to the outdoor environment.


You're now ready to stick your little babies in the ground.

I believe this process will probably be a little different for each zone, but its a general guideline, not the gospel truth. I hope this is helpful to some people, let me know what you come up with. Or if everything I wrote is dead wrong, like I said this is a learning experience. It's my first real year with a real organic garden and I'm trying to do everything right, but I'm not a real gardener by any means. Good Luck and Cheers! - David