Wednesday, March 06, 2013

Starting seeds indoors - choosing your plants

You learned what supplies I use and now it's time to pick what plants to start inside and which ones will be just fine to start directly outdoors. I will let you in on my secrets ;-)
No, really - all this have been tried and messed up and also successfully done by me personally. 

I will start with those you can and should start inside in your green house.
I started tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants inside, 8 weeks before the last spring frost date for our area. From my experience these need to be nice and big to successfully transplant into your soil. I start the seeds in the bigger pots (you saw them in my previous post). 


I also start some of my Spring veggies inside although I learned last year that you don't really have to. I tried to start them inside and then start them also out in the soil (when the ground warmed up a bit). It turned out that there was no difference in crop. When it was time to transplant the inside plants outside, the ones sowed outside just started to peak out of the ground. But by the time the transplants got adjusted and their roots stopped freaking out from all the space they had to deal with, the outside plants caught up to them and all was on the same track. This year I only started kale and brussel sprouts inside. You can also start broccoli if you would like to grow that. I am also starting those 8 weeks before the last frost date but these will be going into ground in about 4 weeks.


And now let's move on to the "outsiders". What do I sow straight into the ground? Almost everything else. To name my favorites from the Spring veggies: lettuce, spinach, kale, cabbage, leek, onion, garlic, cauliflower, and radishes. I am yet to try kohlrabi this year.


From Summer veggies these are the ones good to start straight in the ground: cucumbers, zucchini, all types of squash, pumpkin, corn, all types of beans, beets, carrots, and melons

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1 comment:

Monika said...

Melody, the cats are definitely a problem at my sister-in-law's garden since they are all visiting her cat. Did you try to plant some plants around your garden that cats don't like? To name few - lavender, lemon thyme, marigold, and geranium? That should keep them out... Also I heard about sprinkler that activates by motion... We have no cats only because our dog is outside ALL the time so they provoke him walking slowly around the fence but never make it over. They really enjoy him going crazy because they throw a little stretch here and there too ;-) Let me know how it goes...