How To Plant Vegetable Seeds Indoors

Todays is the day I get together with all the Cozy Living gals with our monthly round up hosted by Jennifer from Town-N-Country Living. She puts this all together for us and for you all to enjoy. To see what everyone else is sharing click on the thumbnails right before my signature of this post.

I can’t believe that it’s March already, and I’m so excited to report the nasty, snowy, bitter cold weather had finally let up here in Michigan and it took place in all one day. We went from well below zero to 50 degrees with mountains of snow melting and creating flooding with slushy muddy roads. At least here in the country, we have only one lane dirt roads where I’m from.

Well those warm temps go me excited about planting the garden, and dreaming of the smell of fresh tilled soil, the warm earth on my hands, and the simple joy of being alone with God and nature. The expectant sight of those tiny seeds pushing up from the earth and yielding bright colored, delicious vegetables is exhilarating.

I just took inventory of the freezer and the veggies I canned and froze from last season, I have enough corn froze to get us through until this years harvest, a few bags of green beans, plenty of crushed tomatoes and spaghetti sauce, squash, but I will run out of peppers. That gives me a good idea of how many plants I’ll need to get me through the season this year.

I like to start my tomato plants and my pepper plants indoors in egg shells and then as they progress in their growing I’ll transfer them to peat pots and that’s where they’ll grow until planting time. I directly sew cucumbers, peas, squash (winter and summer), onion sets, and potatoes, into the garden. I’ve tried starting the seeds indoors but there’s absolutely no reason for doing it. They don’t produce any sooner or grow any faster in plant form versus directly sewing seeds.

I’m lucky to have the space to start the seeds indoors and my Dad replaced several light ballasts on a job site and I was the lucky owner of the old ones, so for no expense at all I have grow light to put over my seedlings. I’ll make sure and start plenty of extras. I normally have good success with germination, but I saved my own seeds from last years plants so I’m anxious to see if that makes a difference in how many come up.

Gardening is always an experiment and things change from year to year. Everything from how quickly the soil warms up to how much rainfall we get, even in which months we get that rainfall. I heard so many people say their gardens were terrible last year, but our cabin was located in just the right spot and rainfall wasn’t an issue like it was for most and I have a beautiful garden that produced much.

Make sure and follow the directions on the back of your seed packets. It will give you how many days to germinate and also how many days to plant before the last frost; even how deep to plant the seed in the soil. Every area is different so follow the recommendations for the area of the country you live in for best results.

Some of my best tips for starting seeds inside is they need grow lights, and they need to be watered with a mister, but not overwatered, and they also cannot dry out when they’re young and tender or the grow lights will burn them up. It takes a little practice to get it right, but that part of the fun in learning what works best. My other tip is to plant more than you’ll need, you will loose some plants, some just won’t germinate at all, and you can always give the extras to friend or family.

Vinyet Etc. / Finding Silver Pennies / Duke Manor Farm

 

Creative Cain Cabin / Making It in the Mountains / Town and Country Living