Tips for Sowing Seeds Indoors This Spring

For many home growers, gardeners, and farmers, spring is a busy time in the gardening year. In the period running up to and immediately after the last frost date in your area, you might be sowing a wide range of seeds for your food-producing gardens.

Typically, in temperate climates, seed sowing begins indoors in early spring and transfers outdoors once the weather begins to warm a little later in the season.

Here are a few tips to help you make sure that this busy time goes smoothly and without a hitch.

Plan & Prepare Before Beginning Seed Sowing

More than anything else you might do, planning and preparing before you actually start sowing is the thing that can make the most difference to your rates of success. The better prepared and organized you are when it comes to sowing seeds in spring, the more smoothly your efforts are likely to go.

Personally, I like to have a sowing plan in place, which reminds me what I want to sow, and when I should be doing so each year. This makes it a lot easier to keep track of everything and to make sure that one does not make any mistakes.

Make Sure You Have Good Quality Seed Starting Potting Mix on Hand

Another important thing to prepare for, that really will make your life a lot easier and help ensure good results, is making sure that you have a good-quality growing medium in which to start your seeds.

I usually make my own using a simple one-to-one mix of homemade compost (sieved to ensure a fine consistency) and leaf mold (which I also make in my garden). This mix works well for me in sowing a wide range of crops for my vegetable garden.

Whether you choose to make or buy a seed starting mix, make sure that this is good for seed germination with a good structure. It should be moist yet free-draining and well-aerated.

Use Seed Trays or Wooden Seed Flats To Start Most Seeds

There are various different pots, modules, or trays that you might use to start your seeds. In most cases, I prefer to start my seeds in seed trays or old-fashioned but effective wooden seed flats, pricking out and potting on seedlings from these into their own individual pots once they start developing true leaves and are just large enough to handle.

This means that I need increasing amounts of space as the season progresses. Sowing rather thickly in seed trays or seed flats means that I have more space indoors than I would have had if all my seeds were started in the pots they would remain in for a longer period of time.

Use Heated Propagators Only for Those Seeds That Really Need Them

Space indoors can often be an issue for growers early in the spring, and space within heated propagators (if you have them) or on heat mats can especially be at a premium.

Certain seeds (like those for eggplant or peppers, for example) will typically germinate
better with some reliable heat. So prioritize these and other plants that need heat for good germination rates, and don't worry too much about fitting other seeds in. Many seeds will germinate just fine on a reasonably bright windowsill.

I tend to start tomatoes and peppers and certain squash in a heated propagator. But most seedlings are just placed in a sunny spot inside my home when I sow indoors early in the year.

Make Sure You Have Space to Pot Up Promptly Where Required

As mentioned, I need an increasing amount of space undercover once I pot up young seedlings that I have pricked out of my seed trays. But I do not have the space to grow everything indoors. This is where having an interim space like my unheated polytunnel really comes in handy in the spring since gradually, little by little, as temperatures warm, more and more seedlings can be placed in there, even when it is still a little too cold outdoors.

So, especially if you are sowing a lot of seeds this spring, it is definitely worthwhile considering a greenhouse or polytunnel structure or simply a small cold-frame structure that can let you place plants outdoors a little earlier and extend your growing season.

These are just a few of my simple tips to help you meet your goals this spring as efficiently and successfully as possible.