Seeding: how you sow affects how they grow
Here are some tips and techniques for a successful start to the gardening season
If you are new to gardening and would like to grow a few plants from seed, where do you start?
What’s the best method to get your garden growing and keep it productive? Whether you start seeds indoors or directly sow seeds in the garden, succession planting keeps your garden producing delicious vegetables, fruits, herbs and pretty flowers all season long.
To help you decide how best to grow your garden, here are some tips and techniques from expert National Garden Bureau (www.ngb.org) members.
What is direct sowing?
Direct sowing is the process of planting seeds directly in the garden — right into the soil. Seems pretty simple, right? Instead of starting seeds indoors and transplanting them into the garden later, direct sowing skips this step, allowing you to plant seeds straight into the garden soil.
Some large seeds, like squash, bean and cucumber, make perfect candidates for direct sowing. Larger seeds also make spacing between seeds easier to see, ensuring you provide adequate distance for the seedlings to grow into full-sized plants.
When direct sowing smaller seeds, such as lettuce or carrots, pay close attention to ensure adequate spacing, or you’ll need to spend time thinning the seedlings later to allow the plants to flourish. Seedlings growing too closely together can result in weak plants competing for nutrients. They may also become susceptible to disease due to lack of adequate airflow. They may not develop properly. This is particularly true with root crops, such as carrots, radishes and beets, as they need enough room for their roots to fully form. Space seeds well to avoid extra work.
Some plants — such as beets and carrots, which have a long taproot — dislike transplanting and should be directly seeded in the garden to avoid transplant shock and root disturbance. Other plants, like tomatoes and peppers, take a while to grow into strong plants and need warm soil temperatures before planting outdoors in the garden. If you live in a climate with a short growing season or eagerly crave early summer tomatoes, you may want to start tomato and pepper seeds indoors.
What is succession sowing?
Succession sowing involves multiple seed plantings of the same crop throughout one growing season. Instead of sowing 100 lettuce seeds at once, for instance, succession sowing spaces out the plantings every few weeks throughout the growing season. Because most home gardeners can’t consume 100 heads of lettuce when the crop all matures at once, a more practical method of succession sowing — planting 20 seeds, waiting two weeks to plant another 20 seeds and so on — allows you to harvest and enjoy the first planting while the successive crops continue to grow.
With a little planning based on your area’s first and last frost dates, succession sowing keeps your garden productive throughout the growing season — and your dinner table full of delicious garden-to-table meals.
Succession sowing with flowers
Succession sowing isn’t limited to edible crops. If you adore creating beautiful bouquets from your garden, succession sowing works well with flowers, too. By staggering the seed plantings of single-stem flowers like some zinnias and sunflowers every two to three weeks, you’ll keep your vases filled with gorgeous blooms throughout the growing season. Or, if you’re eager to keep your flower beds looking lovely and vibrant throughout the season, succession sowing works well to keep your landscape and garden beds filled with colour.
Not all crops need succession sowing
Some edibles, like peas, cucumbers and squash, produce continuously throughout the season. Other crops, like radishes, carrots, cauliflower and heading lettuce, are oneand-done. Cut-and-come-again varieties prolong your harvest, but you may want to succession sow some additional seeds of these crops to maintain a steady supply through the season.
While succession sowing veggies, fruits and herbs keeps your kitchen filled with homegrown goodies, a long season of beautiful blooms brightens your garden — and fills your vases.
Consider the flowers you’re growing to determine when to succession plant. One-hit wonders, such as single-stem sunflowers, should be sowed every two weeks. Medium producers, like snapdragons or larkspur, should be planted every three weeks. “Cut-and-come-again” flowers, such as zinnias and cosmos, should be sown every four weeks.