A Quick Guide to Starting Your Seeds Indoors

Late winter can be a tough time for us gardeners. When the calendar turns to March, the days are getting longer, the snow is melting, and the itch to get outside and garden gets stronger every day. Those sunny days when temperatures soar into the 40s and 50s can seem especially cruel when followed by a sharp drop in temperatures and extended cold snaps. For many gardeners the cure for their itch to garden and for their impatience for spring to arrive is to seed vegetables and flowers indoors under grow lights for later transplant into the garden.

The benefits of starting your own seeds indoors are many. For my own gardening needs, starting my seeds indoors allows me to grow varieties that I would not find in a gardening center or box store. This is critically important when taking into consideration needs such as disease resistance and tolerance of soil type, as well as a desire to grow a variety that is not a common variety (think heirloom tomatoes). Growing your own plants also guarantees that your plants will be the optimal size when the time comes to plant them outdoors in the garden or in a container.

Successfully growing quality transplants requires good understanding of a number of parameters, so though you’re probably eager to start, take a moment to read on about these topics:

• When to start each type of seed based on knowledge of the last expected frost date for their area, to ensure transplants are of optimum maturity right when the acceptable conditions for that plant arrive
• How to use a planting calculator to help determine correct timing of your seeding
• Where in one’s home is the best location to start the seeds
• What is the proper temperature for germination
• How to provide adequate light
• What growing medium to use and when to fertilize
• How to plant each type of seed and in what type of container
• How to hardening off your transplants before transplanting them into the garden

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