Seed Starting

Hello 😃 Looking forward to meeting some folks here when it grows

I saw you have a section for seed saving but not for starting from seed. I'm going to be starting some of my seeds for spring soon, which got me thinking about it

Cool site!

Hi Plot22Mabel 👋 we're looking forward to seeing new faces around here too!

Thanks for the suggestion, I love the idea for a seed-starting section and just added it 👌

In general I'm here to support you all, so I love hearing ideas for improving and new sections / features to add. Whatever you need to make the community feel like home and function the way you'd like, I'm all ears and ready to add it 🌱

If you're seed starting on a warm window ledge indoors, I heard it's good to turn the seedings around as they lean to the light. Makes their stems stronger like building muscle I guess, so they can cope with wind better when planted out.

Speaking of seed starting, why is it you have to start tomatoes in advance and plant from starts? Why can't you just plant the seeds directly?

So I don't know if this is universally true in every climate, but where I am in the Sonoran Desert we only have about 2.5 months between our last spring frost, and our 100F+ days at the start of summer. I start mine indoors in January to get a big jump on our short season and be sure that I make the most of it.

If you have a longer growing season, though, I'm sure you can direct sow tomato seeds outside.

The more time plants spend indoors, the less time you have to wait between putting them in the garden and getting harvests - so it's all about timing it with your climate 🍅😃

Makes sense, I can never get the timing right for when to start different seeds. BTW I'm in Tucson also

Oh sorry I forgot. Search the site for "Tucson Planting Guide" or for "March", I made one for each month with the timing for indoor seeds, direct-sow, and transplant.

I see you're 9b so you might have to adjust slightly, but it should get you pretty close to the right timing!

Just did a bunch of squash out in the garden yesterday from seed. Very excited about it 😁

To answer your question about tomatoe seeds: you can direct sow if you’ve got a long, warm season and frost-free soil, but most of us start indoors because tomatoes need a big head start. Cold soil stalls them, and a short season means you’d barely get fruit before fall.

2 things:
1. When plants/seedlings bend, the cells on the long side have actually grown longer than the cells on the inside of the curve. Turning the containers allows all of the cells to grow the same length.

2. I live in S TX. I start my Seeds indoors to get a jump on the hot weather. I want s strong seedlings/plants going outside in spring so I get a longer pick time before the heat cooks the plant,
Most of my growing space is under 70% shadecloth.

I have trays of veg seedlings that will be transplanted when the moon is new again. I did it because it's been in the 100s here and everything would have been too late to harvest this fall had I waited to direct sow in cooler weather.
This is a tiny portion of what's going out in mid Oct.