Have You Started Your Seedlings?
The economy is down. Money is tight. Suddenly, raising your own food is becoming hip.
If you want to grow your own garden, but farming doesn’t run in your family, it’s okay. The best thing you can do is start by growing your own seedlings. That’s where you plant seeds in trays and begin the growing process indoors. Once the seeds turn into small plants (seedlings) that’s when you take them outside and plant them in dirt.
There are numerous advantages to this method, both for the seed and for you. For the seed, the trays you buy at a gardening store or at a Wal-Mart usually come with nutritious soil that is easy for the seed to grow in (and the plant to break out of.) Though be careful, some trays will not be organic and all-natural.
The benefit to you is that seedling trays are more forgiving than just planting the seeds. Seedling trays are not exposed to harsh sun, torrential downpours, or animals which might end a seed’s life before it has begun. Also, the more mature the seedling, the better the chance it will grow into a full plant. This is why you want them to spend as much time in the tray as possible. Just remember to get the plant out of the seed tray eventually or else there will not be enough room for the plant’s roots.
Now, you may ask “When do I plant my seeds to make seedlings?” The trick is to figure out your geographical zone. This will determine when you can reasonably expect there to be no more frosts. The USDA Plant Hardiness map will tell you the zone in which you live. Then, once you figure that out, you can look here to see when the frosts usually end.
Then it’s just a matter of couting backwards. Check your seed package, talk to gardening store employee, or look online to figure out how long a seed should be planted in a tray before putting it into the ground.
Let’s look at an example. Let’s say you live in Zone 6. The frost free time for Zone 6 begins on March 30. Now, for this example, let’s say you want to grow something that needs to be planted 4 weeks ahead of time. That means on March 2, you needed to be putting seeds in trays.
This also means that for many Zones, you could have already started your seedlings (as this post was written on March 20). The good news is that you still have time. Many types of food can be planted late and still have a chance to grow into mature, ripe, wonderful food-giving plants.
However, get started making seedlings soon. Time waits for no gardener and you don’t want to miss out on being hip!
