How To Start Seeds Indoors For Your Garden
If you’re new to seed starting, you probably want something super easy, straight forward, and quick, right? Let me tell you, you don’t need anything fancy or the most expensive greenhouse equipment to start your seeds indoors. All you need is containers (of any form), a sunny window, seed-starting mix, and something underneath your pots to catch drips. Sounds simple right? Let’s get to it!
Before You Start
Before you get started, think about why you are wanting to plant in the first place. Are you wanting to grow your own food? It has such amazing health benefits and financial benefits! Are you wanting to grow herbs + flowers? Beautifying your space can have so many health benefits too. What ever your reason is for gardening, hone in on that ‘why’.
Seed starting is such a great way to save money on gardening. If you are growing food, it is such an amazing thing for your heath and so save money on food too. Since you are growing from scratch, rather than buying already established plants, it is much more affordable in the long run. Let me note, however, that you do not want to skimp out on quality, organic seeds and soil. Those two items are the bedrock of your entire garden empire and you don’t want to pay for that later. One of my favorite green activists, Rob Greenfield, is hosting a seed project. He will be sending out 10,000 seed packets including hearty veggies, tasty herbs, healing greens, and a mix of beautiful flowers for our pollinator friends to enjoy too. Click here to sign up for a free seed pack! We got ours in 2021 and I can’t believe how much produce we were able to grow from it.
You honestly don’t need fancy growing lights or heating pads for this. They do help, yes, but they aren’t necessary. If you can afford a greenhouse, great! If not, they can be quite pricy so I don’t blame you. But again, they aren’t necessary. Your home more than likely already has windows and the heat running. Hopefully you have a quality filter for your water, but if not then just leave a glass of water out overnight to allow the chlorine to evaporate. I like to let my water sit out, then pour it into a spray bottle and keep near my plants.
When I say we are frugal, I mean it! We started out by saving all of our organic egg cartons to house our seeds in the spring! We had some left over biodegradable containers one year, so we used those too. But don’t be afraid to get creative! You also don’t have to go out and purchase the plastic domes, although you could probably reuse them in future years. One year we opted to use clear plastic tubs. You can use plastic wrap and toothpicks, glass mason jars, or plastic tubs as a dome, like we are!
Related: How To Plan A Garden
Things you may need
Organic Starting Soil (if you have the materials, you can make your own starting mixture with 4 parts compost, 1 part perlite, 1 part vermiculite, and 2 parts peat moss)
Compostable seed starter pots (as pictured)
Reusable Burpee Seed Starting Trays (our current choice. It comes with a bottom tray to catch water + water seedlings through the bottom of the soil)
More advanced options
When to start your seeds
If you are here in Michigan, there’s actually various times you can start your seeds indoors. Always check your seed packets for individual instructions. You can also utilize the farmers almanac to determined when your last frost date might be. My daughter and I typically start our seeds around mid-March, or Ostara (the Spring Equinox). The seeds have usually sprouted and are ready to be planted towards April.
After planning out your garden and determining what you want to plant, you’ll want to to purchase your seeds (or use ones you might have harvested last fall). You’ll then want to plant about 4-5 seeds (of the same variety) in one container. This is important because you don’t want to assume that the one seed will germinate, yet you don’t want to put too many seeds and waste them. Unless you plan to pull apart the baby plants and replant them in their own containers to continue to grow, you’ll want to just plant a comfortable amount.
Once your seeds have sprouted and have a few leaves, it’s time to start the thinning process. This can be done one of two ways: the process I described earlier where you pull apart the seedlings and give each their own container, or clip/pull out the seeds leaving only 1-2 of the healthiest sprouts in your container. Seedlings that are not thinned end up competing with one another for root space + nutrients - kind of like adding too many fish in a 1 gallon tank.
Over the course of a few weeks to months, you’re going to want to keep your soil moist but not soaking. I prefer to add water from the bottom to saturate all the soil, then mist from above until it’s time for another saturation.
Time to plant
Your plants are large enough, the ground is thawed, and you’re super excited to get your garden started! But you can’t take them straight to the garden. You need to do a hardening off process or the plants will undergo shock. Just like any baby, your seeds have been indoors under your absolute protection and will need to be socialized first. Starting around 10 days to a week before you are ready to move your plants outside, you can begin gradually exposing them to the elements of your garden.
If you have a small fan you can keep in the room you have your seeds, this will aid in the hardening off process. For the first day, you’re going to want to take your seeds outside for just a few minutes. If it’s a mild day, you can probably leave them out for 30 minutes or so. But if the sun is harsh and the winds are high, you might want to only give them 15 minutes or less of exposure. Then gradually increase the time over the course of a week. By the end of this process, your seedlings will be ready to face the elements.
After they have graduated from hardening off, you can proceed to plant them according to your seed packet instructions (whether it’s a container garden on the porch or a full blown garden). Take your time enjoying the fruits of your labors, reducing mental strain, and boosting your immune system.
I hope those instructions were as simple as they could come! It took years of practice to be where we are now, as does any hobby. If you are wanting to start gardening but worried about ‘being bad’ at it or letting your plants die, I beg you not to let that stop you! You don’t start out amazing at anything, it takes time, practice and dedication. Similarly, it takes time, practice, and nurturing to make a garden grow. Give yourself that same grace and happy planting!
Do you have any tips for someone who may be starting out this process as a beginner?