A Young Seed's Story

Once upon a time, there was a seed that was packaged in a paper bag. After being bought, it was shipped to the Norton Family Homestead. It eagerly awaited spring to be planted and grown into a lush plant. And thus, our story begins.

What We Need

Almost everyone knows something about seeds and plants and how they grow. They know seeds require soil for nutrients, water, and sunlight to sprout. In gardening, the process of sowing the seeds into the ground (planting them) is called seeding. This can be done in containers or directly in the ground outside.

Our plan for our garden is to start most of the seeds in containers prior to transplanting them outside when the ground and weather conditions warm up. When you plant indoors, you need to meet all the outside conditions inside. This includes sunlight. So, we use artificial sunlight through flourescent lights and grow lights. We are lucky enough to have several grow lights and even more flourescent lights on our property. We also have a greenhouse that acts as additional warmth for the seeds and a couple heating mats for the seeds as well. We also have tons of plastic containers for growing seeds that we've been able to reuse. But this year, because our garden is going to be so much larger than in the past, we've had to get creative about how we are going to seed everything that needs to be seeded.

We've decided upon multiple different kinds of containers to sow the seeds. We have a few different seeding tray greenhouses like you can buy at any store in the garden department. We also have a few different plastic seeding cups. There are also a few caps that aren't specifically used for seeding, but why wouldn't we? We did have to poke holes in the bottom of them for drainage purposes, but that was a quick and easy fix. We also used a ton of solo cups with holes poked in the bottom for drainage as well!

A New Seeding Method

One method that we haven't tried before, but this year we are trying is using toilet paper rolls as seedling starter containers.

After collecting some toilet paper and paper towel rolls (cut in half), we took scissors and cut a bunch of small slits along the bottom of each roll. We folded those over so the folds created a bottom. Then, we placed them on a tray, filled them with dirt, and sowed the seeds. Once the seedlings sprout, we can plant them outside, toilet paper roll and all! If this works well, we will be saving toilet paper and paper towel rolls all next year. We love using different things around the house that normally would be considered trash.

When to Sow What

Different plants require different temperatures to sprout and grow. Some plants require warmer climates, and some cooler climates. Think tropical plants, for example. But the same is true for plants that are typically found in vegetable gardens. These are spring/fall plants verses summer plants. A good rule of thumb, if you're unsure, is that any plant that is low to the ground and isn't exposed a ton to the outside world is a spring or fall plant.

For example, a carrot is a spring plant because it grows primarily underground. There are tops of the carrot that are above ground, and the root system (tuber) that is the carrot does require soft enough ground to grow sufficiently, so it can't be grown during extremely cold months, but we can start it earlier than, let's say, tomatoes, which grow primarily above ground, and a long way above ground.

In order to determine when we should sow our garden seeds, we need to know when the last frost of the winter season happens in our region. We do this by looking up our gardening zone. A simple Google search showed we live in zone 6A, so our last frost date typically is between April 1st and 21st. With this information, we were able to plan when we needed to seed which plants, so they'll be ready for transplanting a bit later in the season. Thus, we have our first seeds being planted this week: celery and onions!

Why Seed Indoors?

One of our goals this year as indicated in last week's post is to provide enough food for year-round vegetables and fruit for our family. By sowing seeds early indoors, we are able to expand our growing season by a considerable amount of time. This means plants will grow faster, produce faster, and if they're plants that produce multiple times, they'll produce more!

It is not recommended that some plants be sown indoors and then transplanted because they don't do well once transplanted. You will see us sow some seeds indoors, transplant said seeds once they become seedlings, and also directly sow seeds into the ground.

Even though this week we only planted celery and onion seeds, we are excited to see how full and lively our growing stations become and then our garden! Thanks for tuning in! Until next time!