Earth2You: Starting Seeds Indoors, when and how?

The reason for starting seeds indoors is to harvest your crop sooner rather than later. For most plants if you waited until after your last freeze date to plant seeds directly into your garden then you could you’ll be waiting most of your season to enjoy those treats. Take advantage of your sun and harvest as much as you can by starting seeds indoors.

But when is the right time to start indoors?

Most seed packets will tell you so READ YOUR SEED PACKET…but, start too soon and you’re plants will be ready for the outdoors before all danger of frost has past and you’ll have to keep transplanting to larger containers.

First you must know your last freeze date and second you must know if you’re plant can tolerate frost when it’s ready to be planted outdoors or if all danger of frost must have past in order for your seedling to survive.

Examples of Seeds to start indoors:

Tomatoes can be started indoors 5-7 weeks prior to last frost date

Green beans can be started indoors 3-5 weeks prior to last frost date

Pumpkins can be started indoors 3-4 weeks prior to last frost date

Broccoli can be started indoors 6-8 weeks prior to plant date (this is a cool weather crop and can be planted outdoors in my area as early as March so if I wanted to start indoors then I would start indoors late January)

Corn can be started 3-4 weeks indoors before it has to be planted into the ground but it has to be planted 2-3 weeks AFTER last freeze date to ensure survival

Here’s a link to a lovely cheat sheet!

You’ll need some supplies in order to start seeds indoors:

Potting Soil

they make seed starter potting mix specifically for this purpose but you really have to soak this stuff, sometimes overnight to get it wet enough for your seeds. Lots of mixes use peat which I’ve read isn’t the best and you should make your own mix but this is the gardener with a life after all!

Containers

you’ll need small containers that can hold water & soil

get different sizes if

you want to start earlier

Pellets

pellets are nice because they easily expand, everything is contained in a small area, and very easy to water but again. I’ve read that peat isn’t the best source but it’s easy and for a gardening beginner I like them…just remember to remove the netting before planting!