Timing your seed starting shouldn't be hard. There are plenty of calendars to follow, right? Until following a calendar means you start too early, run out of space, and end up babysitting leggy, root-bound seedlings for weeks. Or you start too late and miss the planting window you planned for.
So, today on Just Grow Something, we're connecting the dots between frost dates, planting calendars, and harvest windows to build a seed-starting schedule that fits your garden and your climate.
You’ll learn which crops are best started indoors vs direct sown, which plant families need a long “grow-on” period, how to avoid common timing traps, and a step-by-step way to pick seed-starting dates based on your planned transplant date or your desired harvest window.
Let's dig in!
If you need some additional help with starting your seeds indoors, it’s not too late in the season to take my Seed to Sprout course. In about 90 minutes you’ll know everything you need to know about getting your seeds started in the proper containers, with the right balance of lighting, water, and air flow, and how to get them transitioned to the garden with very little shock or damage. https://www.justgrowsomething.com/indoor-seed-starting
University of Missouri Extension — Starting Plants Indoors From Seeds: https://extension.missouri.edu/publications/g6570
Illinois Extension (Good Growing) — When should I start my seeds?: https://extension.illinois.edu/blogs/good-growing/2023-02-10-when-should-i-start-my-seeds
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00:00:00
OK, tell me if this sounds familiar.
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It's the middle of winter. It's cold, it's blurry out.
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And suddenly you get this one week or maybe 10 days of just
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beautiful, sunny, warm weather. And you get that sort of spring
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fever, and you start just itching to want to do something,
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but you know it's too early to do anything outside.
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So what do you do? You start seedlings, right?
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Because you're excited. And then two weeks later, you're
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surrounded by a jungle of seedlings that are already
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stretching for the light, and suddenly it's snowing outside.
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Yeah, been there, done that. Or you've done the opposite,
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where you start the seedlings a little too late and then come
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the right time to transplant them according to the calendar.
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You're transplanting tiny little seedlings that never really
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caught up. Also Same.
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So today we're going to fix that.
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Welcome back to Just grow something.
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I'm Karen Velez, market farmer science geek, and this is the
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place where we keep things practical and evidence based and
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doable in real life gardens. This is the first episode of our
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March series and this month we are focusing on two different
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themes. We're doing seed starting and
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we're also going to talk about growing in a greenhouse.
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So we're kicking it off by connecting this episode to two
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topics that we talked about here recently, and that is continuous
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harvest using harvest windows and building a planting calendar
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backward from frost. So now we're going to apply that
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same sort of count backward logic to one of the most common
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pain points that I see in Facebook groups every single
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spring. And that is how do you decide
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your seed starting dates without guessing or creating absolute
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chaos in your little seed starting area.
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So by the end of the episode today, I am hopeful that you
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will be able to decide which crops should be started indoors
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and which ones are better direct sewn.
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Understand which plant families need a longer indoor grow on
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time and which ones only need a few weeks and actually don't do
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very well if they are in their pots for much longer than that.
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How to avoid the two big timing traps, starting too early and
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starting too late. And then how to choose your seed
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starting dates based on either your planned planting or
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transplant date or your planned harvest window and then working
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backwards. Let's dig in.
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So seed starting dates are not about the calendar per SE.
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You might be seeing a lot of posts right now online or
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articles that have the verbiage or a headline that says
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something like seeds to start in March, but that can be really
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misleading. Your seed starting dates are
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going to be based on your particular climate and the way
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your air temperatures and your soil temperatures tend to ramp
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up in the spring. So March may be way too late for
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you or maybe way too early for you if you're starting the same
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seeds that I am in March because we are in different climates or
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different zones. So seed starting or a seed
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starting date is not March 1st because that's what people do,
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right? A seed starting date is the date
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that your plant needs to be transplant size and this usually
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means having at least two true leaves, usually about four and
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is a certain height minus the time that it takes to grow that
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plant to that size indoors. We call that the growing on
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period minus the time it takes to harden that plant off.
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And yes, we are planning that step intentionally.
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So in reality, the right time to sow your seeds indoors depends
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on how long that particular species needs to develop into a
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healthy transplant. This could be anywhere from a
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few weeks to many weeks depending on the crop.
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Which means that the right start date, and I'm using air bunnies
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here, widely varies depending on where you garden.
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So today is less about memorizing dates for each
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species and more about building a repeatable system that you can
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use based on where it is that you are gardening.
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And the first thing that we have to do with that is decide
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whether a crop should be started indoors or if it's better off
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being direct sewn out into the garden.
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Crops usually belong in one of three groups.
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The first one would be the ones that you almost always want to
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start indoors. So these are crops that either
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need a really long growing season or they grow very slowly
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in the beginning before they finally take off, or they just
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benefit from getting established before the outdoor stress sort
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of kicks in. So this can be things like
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tomatoes or Peppers or eggplants, those things that
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really do need a fairly long growing season in order to be
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able to start producing your onions or your leeks.
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If you're starting them from seed, they benefit from getting
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that head start indoors where you can keep an eye on them as
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they slowly start to come up before you put them outside.
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Celery is another one. It takes up to three weeks for
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celery sometimes to even sprout, much less for it to grow to a
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size where it can really handle the elements and it can handle,
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you know, the insect predation and stuff.
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So you want to get that one started really early.
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And then a lot of brassicas, so your larger brassicas like your
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broccoli or your cabbage or your cauliflower, we often start
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these indoors, partly so that we get some, we get better results
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out of those plants and partly because we're trying to get an
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early start based on where we are to keep them from bolting if
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our springs get too hot too fast or being able to get them out
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after it is too hot in the summertime for them to be able
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to produce for a fall crops. The timing is often right on
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there. OK.
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On Brassica specifically, you know they establish faster and
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mature or earlier if they have been started indoors and they're
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transplanted outside. It doesn't mean that you can't
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direct sew these things, OK? Obviously, you know, the way
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that nature does things, these seeds would naturally drop and
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they will reproduce on their own.
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But nature has different priorities than what we do.
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You know, nature's priority is just reproduction, right?
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So get one fruit that ripens and then drops and falls.
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That's reproduction. We don't want just one fruit out
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of our plants. We want multiple fruits.
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We want that to keep going for months, which is why we do
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things a little bit differently than Mother Nature sometimes,
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right? But you know you can direct so
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some of these things if you have a very long growing season where
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you are or you are somewhere that never sees a frost and you
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have ideal conditions all year round, that is not most of us.
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So all those things that I just mentioned, usually you want to
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start those indoors. The other side to this is the
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group that usually likes to just be direct sown.
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These are the crops that tend to dislike having their roots
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disturbed or they just simply grow fast enough outdoors that
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they don't need to be transplanted.
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So they can just be grown in place, right?
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So these are things like your root crops, carrots, beets,
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radishes, turnips. It's not that you can't start
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these indoors and try to transplant at them, but
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generally speaking, what happens is when the root is disturbed,
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those roots tend to grow a little funky.
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That's the best way I can describe it.
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Especially carrots. They'll get, you know, some sort
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of weird crooks in them. The beets may not establish
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themselves fast enough again once they're transplanted to
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really take off radishes. They grow so quickly.
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There really is 0 need to be starting those indoors and you
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know turnips, same thing, they don't like to have their their
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root disturbed. The same thing goes for your
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legumes like peas and beans generally grow fast enough that
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there is not a need for growing them indoors.
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And oftentimes it it does disturb when you disturb those
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roots, it can take them a while to settle back in again in order
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to be able to begin growing. So you might actually being
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delaying the harvest rather than speeding it up if you start
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those indoors and transplant them.
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Corn is another one. I mean, corn is technically a
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grass and when you go to transplant corn, it takes a hot
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minute for it to sort of resettle itself again.
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It doesn't mean that you can't do these things indoors and
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transplant them outside, but the preference for these things is
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that you just plant them in place.
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And we have that third group, which is you can either do it
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directly in the ground or you can start them indoors to
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transplant. Really it's based on your goals
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because both approaches can work with these guys.
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Most of your leafy greens can go either way, depending on the
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timing and the pest pressure. The one that I would say doesn't
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do as well-being transplanted as if you're going for like a small
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leafy greens mix or baby greens, when you're planting these,
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you're tending to sort of plant them like in a broadcast manner
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to where they're growing sort of in a clump is the best way I can
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describe it. That doesn't transplant very
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well because you're going for baby greens at that point.
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But if you're doing like head lettuces, then those absolutely
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can be started indoors for earlier planting or if you're
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trying to avoid specific pests. Or you can direct sow them if
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you just manage your spacing a little bit.
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The same thing goes for herbs. Depending on the speed of growth
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and how you plan to use them, you can either plant them
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indoors to transplant later or just plant them directly into
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the garden. Basil is one that is a good
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example of this. If your soil is warm enough, you
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can absolutely just plant your basil seeds directly in place
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and let them do their thing. They grow fairly quickly, but if
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you're in a shorter season area, it might be more beneficial to
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you to be able to start them indoors and transplant them out
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later. Or if you're using the basil as
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a companion plant to your tomatoes, for example, and you
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want that basil to go in the ground at the same time that you
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are planting your tomatoes, then you're going to have to start
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them indoors. Other ones too that you would
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probably prefer to start indoors rather than in place would be
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those more Hardy perennial herbs.
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So things like Rosemary or well, Rosemary in my area isn't a
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perennial, but in areas where it is a perennial, you might want
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to start it indoors and transplant it outside.
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In my area you definitely want to do that because it is very
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slow growing. So if you want to get anything
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out of it during the season then you need to be starting it
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indoors well ahead of time. Mints, sage, those types of
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things time. Those are usually better off
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being started and then transplanted outside.
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But it they'll grow either way. It just depends on how long you
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want to wait for them. The other group in this group is
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the curcubits. So your cucumbers, your
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squashes, your melons, these can all be started indoors too for a
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head start, but these are the ones that don't like being held
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for too long in their pots. So in my experience, the maximum
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amount of time that I will grow these on is about two to three
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weeks. So once they've sprouted, which
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they usually only take a couple days to sprout indoors, I only
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hold them in those pots for two, maybe 3 weeks and then make sure
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that I get them outside. Because the longer they are held
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indoors, the less likely they are to really like having that
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root disturbance going on. And so it takes them a while
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longer to be able to settle in and do their thing.
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And they just don't seem to produce as well.
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So you can absolutely start them directly out in the garden if
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your soil is warm enough, if you can protect the young seedlings.
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But if you need to either get a jump start on the season or
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you're trying to avoid insect pests, then starting them
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indoors is a really good idea. So how do you decide in real
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life which method you should choose for starting these
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seasons? The first thing is, is the
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outdoor season long enough for this particular crop if I sew it
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directly outside? So warm season crops like
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Peppers that have really long maturity times are going to
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benefit from an indoor start date because they might not
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mature at all if they're started outside too late.
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The second question is, does it tolerate transplanting root
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crops? Like I mentioned, the classic
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please don't make your life harder than it needs to be
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category right? So, you know, if, if they don't
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tolerate transplanting very well, then that's a good crop
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that you should be just direct sewing out into the garden or in
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your containers. And then the third question
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would be, what is your goal? Are you trying to get an earlier
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harvest? Are you trying to get fewer pest
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issues? Or are you looking for just less
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work? So if you're chasing an earlier
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harvest window, then yes, indoor starts can help that.
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But if you're chasing simplicity, well then direct
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sewing is often the win. OK, so let's talk about the
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family patterns, right? Your grow on timelines by plant
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family, because most of these are surprisingly consistent.
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So the ones that have a really long grow on period, which is
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often like between 10 and 16 weeks indoors are all of your
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alliums, right? So your onions and your leeks,
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these are commonly the very first thing that I am starting
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in the winter time. And celery also has a very long
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indoor timeline. So these all tend to be slow to
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germinate and they take a while to get to the proper size for
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transplanting outside your medium length ones.
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Peppers and eggplant, right? These often need as long as 10
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weeks indoors and early growth is often very slow in Peppers
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and eggplant. They do tend to take longer to
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germinate sometimes too. Although I must say, I just
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started my eggplant and I did three different varieties. 1
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variety popped up within two days and the next variety popped
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up in about four days and then that third variety I think took
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five days. So not nearly as long as you
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might think. Sometimes Peppers are next on
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the list. And in my experience, the hot
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Peppers are the ones that really take an extended period of time
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to germinate. The sweet Peppers maybe not
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quite as much, but they are slow growers to start out with.
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So I generally, you know, you're looking at about 6 to 10 weeks
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for, for those guys. Tomatoes are also typically in
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the mid range. They do germinate fairly quickly
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and they do grow faster in my experience than Peppers and
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eggplant indoors. So I usually start those about a
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week or two after I have started my Peppers because they tend to
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catch up much more quickly. So those are your sort of
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medium, you know mid range ones, the ones that are short usually
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about three to six weeks of a growing on period.
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These are your brassicas. This is also gonna depend on
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whether or not you're doing them in the spring or in the fall.
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They usually need about 6 weeks or so on average before they are
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ready to be transplanted outside.
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Lettuces and a lot of greens for transplants are also in this
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category anywhere between three and six weeks.
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And then basil and a lot of other herbs to get them to
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transplant size are going to need that three to six week
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window. And then the ones that have a
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very short grow on period are your curcubits, your cucumbers,
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your squashes, your melons, right.
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If you start these guys too early, especially because they
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are vining crops, you will likely outgrow your seed
00:16:28
starting setup very, very quickly.
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These guys only need about two to four weeks before they're
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ready to go outside. They're at the proper size,
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they've got their their true leaves.
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They are ready to go. Don't hold these guys for too
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long because it will be detrimental to them as you
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transplant them. They do tend to get transplant
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shock after that point. OK.
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So the key point here is not the exact number, it is that your
00:17:00
setup actually matters. So a lot of these, these time
00:17:05
ranges that I'm giving you are approximate because if your
00:17:10
light is weak or your temperatures in your seat
00:17:13
starting area are cool or if there's not like enough
00:17:18
nutrition after that first, you know, 5 or 6 weeks for those
00:17:22
ones that tend to take longer to grow on plants are going to grow
00:17:26
slower and they're going to get leggy.
00:17:28
So that timing is going to change based on your setup.
00:17:32
So indoor timelines are going to vary with your growing
00:17:36
conditions. Just think about that as you're
00:17:38
doing your indoor seed starting. If you are set up to where you
00:17:42
are doing very minimal intervention, meaning you're not
00:17:46
using a heat mat of any sort, you're not using any additional
00:17:51
lighting, you're only relying on window light.
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And maybe you're you're the area where you're growing on is kind
00:17:58
of cool because it's near a window.
00:18:01
Well, then just expect that it's going to take a little bit
00:18:03
longer for your seedlings to get to the right size and they may
00:18:07
not be super strong. They might be a little bit
00:18:10
leggy. The more you can prepare for
00:18:13
starting your seeds, making sure that you have the correct
00:18:16
lighting and the temperatures, etcetera, the better off your
00:18:19
seedlings are going to be. OK.
00:18:21
It's not that you can't start seeds indoors without a fancy
00:18:24
setup. It's not that you can't do it
00:18:27
with just window light. Just know that it's not going to
00:18:30
be the optimum conditions and so you're going to have to account
00:18:33
for that. OK, So what happens if we start
00:18:37
our ceilings too early versus if we start them too late?
00:18:42
Starting too early basically leads to a a now what kind of
00:18:47
situation, right? You might end up with leggy
00:18:51
ceilings from insufficient light, or if the conditions in
00:18:55
your seed starting area are too warm.
00:18:58
You may end up with root bound plants because you started too
00:19:01
early and they're being held too long in their containers after
00:19:05
being ready to go outside. And maybe you run out of room
00:19:09
and you're not able to get them potted up right.
00:19:11
There could be nutrient stress because the seedlings outgrow
00:19:14
the fertility of their mix. Or there could end up with a
00:19:18
timing stress because you're forced to transplant them before
00:19:22
the conditions outside are right, right, because they are
00:19:26
so big. Or you hold them for longer than
00:19:29
is ideal because you're waiting for those outdoor conditions to
00:19:32
be right. Even outside of vegetables,
00:19:36
plants that are held too long in two small containers can become
00:19:40
root bound and they just sort of underperform after getting
00:19:44
transplanted. You had they have to do some
00:19:45
work to sort of uncoil themselves and really start to
00:19:49
work to get their roots situated into the soil.
00:19:52
So the longer a plant spirals its roots in a container, then
00:19:56
the harder it is to transition those plants cleanly out into
00:20:00
the garden. So that sort of cost of starting
00:20:04
your plants too early. Usually means more potting up.
00:20:08
You're going to need more indoor space, you're going to need more
00:20:10
lighting because they're outgrowing their space and
00:20:12
they're just going to need more management from you.
00:20:15
At the opposite end of the spectrum, if we're starting them
00:20:18
too late, then we kind of have a mist window, right?
00:20:22
Starting too late doesn't usually sort of destroy the
00:20:26
ceilings in any way. It just delays our
00:20:28
transplanting, which delays our harvest, and it can push a crop
00:20:31
out of its best weather window. So, you know, if you have
00:20:37
planned a harvest window, say for broccoli, right?
00:20:41
And I'm going to go back to broccoli because it's one of the
00:20:43
things that I struggled with for years and years here in the
00:20:46
spring because in West Central Missouri, we often don't have
00:20:49
much of A spring. We might have a couple of weeks
00:20:52
of spring like weather before all of a sudden we're thrown
00:20:55
into the heat of the summer. Now, the past couple of years
00:20:59
that trend has tended to change a little bit, but I'm going off
00:21:02
of my historic data. So if you have a planned harvest
00:21:06
window and you want to try to get that broccoli harvested
00:21:09
before the real heat hits, if you start them late, that might
00:21:14
make that crop hit maturity under very poor conditions and
00:21:17
all of a sudden it's bolting. So it's not a seed starting
00:21:20
failure so much as it is a timing mismatch.
00:21:24
So there are two ways to choose your seed starting date.
00:21:30
The 1st is to work backward from your anticipated transplant
00:21:35
date. This is the easiest and it tides
00:21:38
directly back to our Build a Calendar Backward episodes,
00:21:41
right? Pick your transplant date.
00:21:45
For frost sensitive crops, this is usually well after your last
00:21:48
frost date. We've talked about the
00:21:50
difference between air temperatures and soil
00:21:51
temperatures, right? For cool season crops, it might
00:21:54
be earlier based on your local conditions and what you have
00:21:58
successfully grown before. Remember, I am planting my
00:22:01
brassicas and my cabbages well before what it normally says to
00:22:04
on the packages because I have historic data that tells me that
00:22:07
it's the best time to do it. OK, this comes with experience.
00:22:11
This comes with noting things in your garden journal.
00:22:13
You thought we were going to get through an episode without me
00:22:15
mentioning a garden journal, didn't you?
00:22:17
Nice try, but just take what you know about that plant and choose
00:22:23
your transplant date and then decide how many weeks that plant
00:22:28
needs indoors to reach that transplant size.
00:22:32
Now, the seed packet will usually help with this.
00:22:36
Oftentimes it's going to say something like start indoors 4
00:22:40
to six weeks before last frost, and that is a really great
00:22:44
starting point. If you don't have any other
00:22:47
information, if this is your first year gardening or your
00:22:51
first year starting seeds indoors, that is a really good
00:22:54
place to start. You can also think about what I
00:22:58
just talked about in terms of how long some of these plants
00:23:01
need to grow on for and take that into consideration as well
00:23:06
when deciding when to start your seeds indoors.
00:23:11
Once you've figured that out, you also need to add that
00:23:15
hardening off time. This is usually about a week,
00:23:17
sometimes longer depending on your condition.
00:23:19
So you have to give yourself that week to 10 days to prepare
00:23:23
those plants for getting put outside and facing the harsh
00:23:27
elements of the garden versus the protected culture of your
00:23:32
indoor seed starting area. OK, so once you Add all that up,
00:23:36
then count backwards on the calendar, choose a transplant
00:23:40
date, figure out how long you want to grow those seedlings
00:23:42
indoors, add in your hardening off time and add in a couple of
00:23:47
days for how long it takes for them to germinate.
00:23:49
And boom, you count backwards. And now you know when it's time
00:23:53
to start your seeds. And again, think about what your
00:23:58
setup is. If you do not have a heat
00:24:01
seedling heat mat, then understand that it might take a
00:24:05
few days longer for those seeds to germinate.
00:24:08
So if you're just take your own conditions and your own
00:24:13
circumstances into account here as you're sort of planning this
00:24:17
out. And again, This is why we work
00:24:20
on Windows, right? We want to have a window of time
00:24:25
where we want to get this transplanted so that a few days
00:24:28
here and there doesn't make or break your gardening season.
00:24:34
The second method is to work backward from your planned
00:24:38
harvest window. So this method is the bridge to
00:24:42
continuous harvest planning. Choose the harvest window that
00:24:46
you want, right? I want lettuce from May through
00:24:49
June, or I want tomatoes starting in July and then work
00:24:54
backward from that date. So figure out the days to
00:24:57
maturity, whether that's from transplant or from direct
00:25:00
sowing, depending on the crop, right?
00:25:03
Then add in in the required time for that indoor growth if you're
00:25:07
transplanting them, plus the time that it takes to reach your
00:25:12
target harvest start date. And then if you're doing
00:25:15
successions, then you repeat the math on a rhythm every one to
00:25:18
three weeks depending on the crop and the season.
00:25:20
I have to do this with our head lettuces.
00:25:23
So this method works best when your goal is a particular
00:25:27
harvest window. If you're harvesting on purpose,
00:25:30
not just that you are planting on time.
00:25:32
So that's basically it. You want to decide whether or
00:25:36
not you're going to start their plants indoors or you're going
00:25:39
to direct. So use the plant family to
00:25:43
estimate the growing on time, whether it's long or medium or a
00:25:46
short, grow on time and avoid those sort of traps.
00:25:51
Planting them too early might lead to leggy root bound plants
00:25:55
or just a management overload. If you're starting them too late
00:25:59
then it might mean a delayed harvest or a missed weather
00:26:01
window. So pick your approach.
00:26:03
Work backward, either from your transplant date or work backward
00:26:07
from your harvest window if you need some additional help with
00:26:10
starting your seeds indoors. It is not too late in the season
00:26:13
to take my Seed to Sprout course.
00:26:15
In about 90 minutes you will know everything that you need to
00:26:18
know about getting your seeds started in proper containers
00:26:21
with the right balance of lighting and the water and the
00:26:23
airflow, and how to get them transitioned to the garden with
00:26:27
very little shock or damage. The link is in the show
00:26:30
description, or you can head to justgrowsomething.com/courses
00:26:34
and find it there. Next week we're going to talk
00:26:37
about how to get those seedlings properly moved from your little
00:26:40
protected indoor seed starting area outside into the garden
00:26:45
safely and without damage. I will also touch on what to do
00:26:49
with transplants that you've brought home from the nursery
00:26:53
and how to get those settled into the garden without
00:26:56
excessive transplant shock, and what to do if any of your seed
00:26:59
starting and transplanting involves an at home greenhouse
00:27:02
space. Until next time, my gardening
00:27:05
friends, keep on cultivating that dream garden, and we'll
00:27:07
talk again soon.