Late winter is a good time to buy seeds of plants you want to start growing indoors. There is plenty of time to choose what seeds you want, order them online, from a nursery, or buy them from one of the kiosks popping up in stores, and put together your planting plan.
If you want to start seeds in your kitchen, garage, or sun room and then transplant them later, you'll need to look at both the seed packet and a calendar. The packet or directions from the grower will tell you when you should plant indoors. Typically that time will be four to eight weeks before the last frost date for your garden. For many areas of the U.S. you will soon be within the four to eight week window. You can find your last frost date at the National Climactic Data Center.
Get out your calendar and mark that date. As I've written before, it's not a 100 percent certainty that you won't get frost past that date, but it's a good starting point for developing your plan. When you have your seeds you simply work backward on the calendar and then mark when you should start sowing them as directed on the packet.
Not every seed is planted early in the spring. Many flowers and vegetables require that you wait to sow them outside after the last frost and when the soil is warm. For those seeds you can delay buying them until late spring, but why not get everything together now. Even if snow is still be on the ground, you can anticipate the warming weather and you can think about good gardening times ahead.
You'll want to follow the directions for planting as closely as you can. Planting earlier than the recommended time is not as wise as you might guess. If seedlings are exposed to the late winter or early spring sun from a window for too long, they can grow into little, tall, spindly plants that won't do well when transplanted outside. The reduced amount of natural light during this time of year isn't enough to provide good growth.
Seeds planted correctly will have the right amount of time to germinate and grow to the proper size for transplanting. This is based on natural light and the assumption that you're planting seeds in a pot near a window. If you plan to use artificial light for long periods of time, you can get away with planting earlier than recommended, but the spacing of the light is critical and most people don't have the proper set up for that.
Different plants have different planting times. While warm season plants like tomatoes, eggplant, or peppers can die or be stunted if they're sown or transplanted before the air and soil warm properly, some cool season plants like cabbage, broccoli, and peas can tolerate a light frost and actually do better when planted before the last frost date. Often the seed packet will tell you what is appropriate for those plants. If not, do a little research yourself and see if you can sow your cool season plants early.
Think about how many plants you want in your garden as you develop your planting plan. Seeds are packaged differently depending on their size and type. Typically you see them sold by the gram or ounce. When you buy a mass-produced packet from a box store or supermarket it's hard to tell how many seeds you're buying. When you buy from an online specialty seed company they'll usually give you a good idea of how many seeds you'll get.
Buying a packet of lettuce seed online for a few dollars is a great deal when you discover you will be getting 500 or 600 seeds. They are very small seeds and fill a very small space. A similar packet from a store might be about the same price but contain a third of the seeds or less. Of course, you have to decide if you really need 500 seeds. A Mesclun Salad seed blend I'm buying from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds contains 1,000 seeds for $3. With that many seeds I can spread them generously in my raised bed and thin as needed to produce good plants.
When you buy larger seeds you need to be ready for a packet with lots of air in it. Squash and pumpkin seed packets may only have 20 seeds. I once bought a packet of "super-size pumpkin" seeds that only had three seeds. That was disappointing.
The difference in seed quantity is also related to the mature size of the plant. Pumpkin plants grow larger than lettuce. Twenty pumpkins can easily fill the same space as 500 lettuce plants. Sunflower seeds follow the same idea; you'll get fewer seeds in a packet for large sunflowers and more if the flowers are smaller.
Seed packets should also have the year printed on them that identifies for what season they were packaged. If planted while they're new, seeds should have a greater than 90 percent germination rate. If you plant old seeds you may have a much lower success rate. I know I'm buying more seeds this year than I have time or space for in my garden, but I know I can plant leftovers next year as long as I'm willing to accept that not all of them will germinate.
My last frost date isn't until mid-May and I won't be able to start growing indoors until mid-March at the earliest. Having the seed packets in hand now and having my gardening calendar marked shows that that's less than a month away for me, probably sooner for you. Once you've marked the calendar with the indoor planting date, it's easy to mark it with when you plan to transplant outdoors. Then it's a simple matter of looking at the seed packet for "days to harvest" and marking that date on the calendar.
You'll be able to know in February on what date you can expect to harvest your beans or tomatoes or cabbage. I think that's an anticipation and inspiration that is worth the wait. Of course, you have to have the seed packets to make it happen. If you haven't bought them yet, do it soon.
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