Starting from Seeds – 3 Key Resources

Greetings fellow Veggie Garden Ground Redeemers! Even if the weather outside doesn’t seem to be screaming “get outside in the garden”, if you’re considering starting your veggies from seeds this year … time’s-a-tickin’.

Although we’ve used seedlings the past several years, we started our very first veggie garden by sowing seeds inside. And although it was a bit of work on the front end, I have to say that it was our most prolific garden ever … not to mention more enjoyable and certainly more educational for my girls and me.

 

But enough about me … this is about you. So if you’re planning on going the seed-route this year, it’s high time that you get started! And in some regions and for some veggies you may already be too late. But keep reading if you want to find out for certain.

 

To help you on your merry gardening way, I thought I’d provide you with a few links that I think you’ll find invaluable.

Step 1 … Determine When to Expect the Last Frost Date in Your Area

The first thing you need to know in order to determine when to start your sow-seeding endeavors is the expected last frost date in your area. For obvious reasons, everything else is based on that.

Click here or on the image to the right. That will get you to The Old Farmers Almanac’s where you can enter your zip code to determine when  the expected last frost date is in your area..

Step 2 … Determine When to Sow Your Seeds and/or Transplant Your Seedlings

Once you have your last expected frost date in hand you need to determine when to start sowing your seeds. And that depends on what veggies you want to grow.

Unless you’re only planning on planting a 1-veggie garden, keeping track of all the dates for the various veggies you plan to plant can be a bit difficult.  This is where Margaret Roach’s Spring Garden Calendar comes in really handy. You can find it here on her awesome website, A Way to Garden.

Once you’re there, you’ll also find some really helpful how-to links at the bottom of the page…and if you have the time, check out the rest of the site. You’ll see why I think so highly of Mz. Roach.

[Note: Since I initially published this post, the Old Farmer’s Almanac took it one step further and added steps 1 and 2 here. Check it out if you want to get to the goodie more quickly.]

 

Step 3 … Know What You’re Doing with Your Seeds

Now that you know what you’re planting and when, it’s time to go to school on how to start your garden from seeds. And there’s no better source that I know of for that than my friend Joe Lamp’l from Growing a Greener World.

Joe is also the Joe behind Joe Gardener … another amazing resource for us gardener types. Click here and you’ll be brought to his podcast with tomato growing expert Craig LeHoullier. There they both share tips and tricks on basically everything you need to know and more on how to start your veggie garden from seeds.

 

 

So there you have it. Hopefully you’ve found this information to be helpful.

But before I go, like my gardening guru friends Joe and Margaret, I’ll leave you with some links to previous posts I did on RYGblog that might shed more light on growing veggies at home.

• Our Family Vegetable Garden…In the Beginning
• The Home Vegetable Garden – Clearly a Family Affair
• Vegetable Garden Basics: Part 1 – Where to locate your garden.
• Vegetable Garden Basics: Part 2 – Raised Beds Pros & Cons
• Vegetable Garden Basics: Part 3 – The What’s & How Much’es
• Vegetable Garden Basics: Part 4 – Companion Plants, Seeds, and When?

Take care friends & happy gardening,