by Birgitt Evans, ABG Board member and Master Gardener
What a wild ride March was! Lives were turned upside down. We traded security for uncertainty. While many people ran for toilet paper, the rest of us surveyed our options and decided that we preferred home food security. And then we discovered that that too was going to be an issue. With a number of edible nurseries “gone dark” and more people than ever competing for seedlings, it looks like we may face shortages of vegetable seedlings. Fear not! Starting with seeds you can grow an even better vegetable garden this summer and for much less money. We will show you how.
While tomatoes, peppers and basil are still best grown from transplants, almost everything else will grow even better when direct seeded in your garden and, in Alameda, April is the month to plant seeds. The true brilliance of seeds is that you have so many more varieties to choose from and many of them are tailored to our micro-climate, bred to resist diseases, selected to be small for containers and geared to make you happy. For example, you can grow bush zucchini in a pot, plant purple carrots, grow heat tolerant lettuce in summer and select just the right size pumpkin for Halloween.
The Basics of Planting Seeds:
- Always read your seed packet. It will tell you how deep to plant, the spacing between plants, the days to germination, the soil temperature needed for germination and a host of other important information.
- Prepare your planting bed by working in compost (1″ for and existing bed/3″ for a new veggie bed) and fertilizer, breaking up big clods of dirt, leveling it and making sure the soil is moist.
- Plant seeds 2 – 4 times as deep as the seed is large. If you plant a small seed too deep, it cannot get up through all that soil to take advantage of the light.
- Plant extra seeds. When starting with seeds, always assume you will lose some to insects, disease and failure to germinate. If you want 4 cucumbers and you have fresh seed, plant 8 seeds. If your seed is old, plant 12 seeds to account for a lower germination rate. Water in your seeds after you plant. Always. Use a gentle spray so they don’t get washed away. Keep the bed moist.
- Thin your plants. Root vegetables do poorly when transplanted so then need to be direct sown. However, it is hard to plant the tiny seeds exactly where you need them (and remember you are planting extra seeds), so you will need to thin any extra seedlings so the plants have space to reach their final size. Refer to your seed packed for final spacing.
- If at first you don’t succeed, try again.
- If you see holes in leaves or vanishing plants, go out at night with a flashlight and see if you can identify and catch the culprit. An iron phosphate bait has low toxicity to all but snails and slugs. If birds are the problem, make cloches by cutting off the top and bottom of a plastic juice bottle and place it over the cucumber, zucchini, bean or pea seed. For rows of carrots, use bird netting.
What to Plant From Seed:
All root crops, including carrots, beets, turnips, parsnips and rutabaga. Cucumbers, squashes, pumpkins and melons. Lettuce, spinach, arugula and Swiss chard. Sweet corn and flour corn. Bush and pole beans. Asian greens like bok choi, Chinese red mustard and komatsuna. Peas. Leeks.
Where to Buy Seeds: Click here to see my list of seed favorite companies.