Big boxes pushing the envelope

Seed racks sprout in the depths of winter; it’s too early to start most things, but bargains beckon

As I recall, there used to be a decent interval between the new year and the time when the seed racks started to appear in hardware stores. If you wanted to get a jump on the season, or merely to dream of the summer ahead, you curled up with that quaint paper collation known as a seed catalogue and circled the varieties that took your fancy.

At a gentle pace, as you noticed the gray days outside growing longer, you would whittle down your selections and fill in the mail-order form, knowing you had a month or so before you needed the seeds in hand. Or you'd amble in your own good time to the retailer racks. Today, as soon as the poinsettias are shown the door, the seed stands go up, bright and replete and full of the promise of spring.

This is vexing on one level because to the casual consumer, the displays seem to be suggesting that this is the time to start seeds. The central period for starting seeds is from early March to mid-April, but the business of germination is much more complicated than that. You might start broccoli seedlings indoors in about two weeks, but you wouldn't sow a butternut squash seed or a lima bean until late May, directly into the garden and when the soil has warmed up. Perhaps folks know this, perhaps they don't.

If you start even cool-season varieties now — in a greenhouse or, more likely for most of us, under lights indoors — the seedlings will be too elongated, rootbound and generally stressed before it is safe to plant them out in the garden. The last frost around these parts can occur in early to mid-April.

There is much to be said for seed starting, not just in saving money and broadening varietal choice, but in getting to the whole essence of gardening, which is about the process of nurturing beauty. But it takes knowledge beyond the seed packet descriptions, and particularly it requires a sense of timing best taught by experience and observing other gardeners, and not when the mass merchandiser decides you should consider purchasing seeds.

That said, there are real advantages to sniffing around the seed racks now, even if you end up with a few impulse buys. Keep your packets of living germ in the fridge until you're ready to use them.

Some seeds need attention soon. If the ground isn't frozen, late January presents an opportunity to sow both sweet peas and garden peas directly into raised garden beds or freeze-proof containers. If the peas haven't shown any stirring after a month, you can sow again. I sow Shirley poppy seeds in the fall but like to scatter fresh seed too at this time to hedge my bets.

The end of the month is the time too to start (indoors, under lights) leeks, cabbages, broccoli and cauliflower, so that you have some stout transplants to install in the garden in April, before things turn warm.

So I entered the store with disdain for these precocious seed racks and left with 16 seed packets. The lady at the checkout asked me whether I had a big garden. I suddenly felt like a horticultural glutton, especially because this was just an aperitif for the party ahead. "I'll give some of them away," I said, and maybe I will.