Beginner-Friendly Guide To Successfully Starting Seeds Indoors

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Startling realization comes all of the sudden on your commute into work: that’s the sun. Could it be? The winter winds have lost some of their bitter edge, the blackened snow banks along the road have shrunk, and you feel an undeniable urge to go outside when the temperature is “all the way up” to forty degrees. It is here: fake spring.

    Now for those of you living far enough south to miss out on the misleading time of fake spring, let us enlighten you. Fake spring is the time period that comes and goes somewhere between early March and late April. During this season, expect unreasonably high temperatures followed immediately by several inches of snow that promptly melts before you even make it to the weekend to go out for one last snowshoe.

    So what’s the big deal, you may ask? Fake spring represents a danger to all of us gardeners here, the irresistible urge to plant. The top soil feels soft and ready to seed, but giving in to your desires will only yield a plethora of dead seedlings as the cyclic frost and snowfall return to devastate your premature garden.

    Enter seed starting. Not only does it cure the itch to plant, but it’s also borderline required by anyone living in the northern half of the United States, especially if you wish to grow plants that take a long time to mature and produce (looking at you, tomatoes). The simple trick is to sow your seeds indoors. Sounds simple, doesn’t it? That’s what we thought too. A quick trip to Google for some research reveals that seed starting can actually be quite complex, even capable of intimidating you into planting paralysis, dashing your hopes and dreams of finally starting your dream garden this year. We are here to help guide you through what we have learned and experienced so far, to help reduce some of that anxiety, and to give you concise knowledge to help you rock your seed starting season. 

    The truth of the matter is that seed starting CAN actually be quite easy if you’ve done your research and have all of your materials ready to go. So in order to ensure you have an easy and enjoyable time starting your seeds, let’s start from the beginning. 

Buying Seeds

    Now, there’s about a million and one different places that you can buy seeds from and a lot of them have great reputations and reviews. Personally, we’ve only bought seeds from True Leaf Market and Johnny’s Selected Seeds throughout our time starting seeds and we’ve had great success and germination rates. If you haven’t already ordered your seeds for the year we would encourage you to do that ASAP as many seed varieties sell out quickly and can require sowing up to 10 weeks before your last frost date. 

To help you get started we’ve put together a list of a few reputable companies with great reviews and a variety of seeds for you to choose from. 

1. True Leaf Market 

2. Johnny’s Selected Seeds

3. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds

4. MI Gardener

5. Burpee

Materials

There are a few essential items to have on hand and ready to go before you start your seeds. We’ve provided you with a list of those essentials below to make your seed starting experience as easy as possible! Nothing fancy here, just the necessities.

List of materials:

1. Seeds

2. Sterile potting soil (we use this Espoma Organic Seed Starter Mix)

3. Seed starting container (you can re-use these every year)

4. Hand-held water sprayer

5. Grow lights or shop lights (we use these LED shop lights and not only do they work just as well but they’re also much cheaper than grow lights)

6. Seed labels

Steps

1. Determine your last frost date. For example, our last frost date is anywhere from May 4th to May 15th. You can find your average last frost date here.

2. Check the back of your seed packets for instructions on when to start indoors and how to plant. If the back of your seed packet does not include this information, you can look on this list to find the recommended start date. Remember, it is recommended to start some plants indoors such as tomatoes and peppers, while others grow best when sown directly in the ground such as potatoes or carrots.

3. Make sure your seed starting containers are clean and free of any residues or leftover soil from the year before. We recommend cleaning them with boiling water to completely sterilize them and stop the transfer of harmful bacteria to the seeds. 

4. Once your seed starting containers are clean, fill each planting space with sterile soil.

5. Follow the seed starting instructions on the back of the seed packet to determine seed depth and how many seeds to plant in each portion of the container. Some seeds many require ¼ inch of soil on top of them, while others simply require being pushed barely into the soil with your finger.

6. Use the spray bottle to water the seeds until the soil is damp, but not soaked. You can also fill the bottom of the tray with just enough water to cover the surface of the container so the soil can soak the water up from the bottom. 

1. Be sure to label your seeds so you don’t get them mixed up. Our first year we simply wrote the names of each plant on a small piece of paper and taped them to the side of the seed starting container. This year we used the plant labels linked above, which I thought made things much easier. Do whatever works best for you!

1. Put the container covers on and set them in a warm area. The ideal temperature for germination is between 65 and 75 degrees Fahrenheit. Be sure to keep the soil slightly damp but be sure to avoid flooding or over watering as this can cause moldy and disease-ridden seedlings. 

2. Once the seedlings have sprouted, put the containers under your grow lights with the grow lights hanging just 1-2 inches from the tops of the seedlings. Continue to move the lights up as the seedlings grow.

3. If you planted multiple seeds in each section of your seed starting container, be sure to thin out the seedlings so that you keep the one strongest of the seedlings in each section.

4. Once the seedlings have grown their first pair of true leaves (the second pair of leaves you will see) it’s time to transplant them into a larger container to continue to grow. We use plastic solo cups that we drilled drainage holes into and can reuse every year. So far they’ve worked great and are a quick and inexpensive solution!

5. When the night time temp in your area is close to staying consistently above 60 degrees, begin to harden off your seedlings. To do this without hurting or killing your seedlings (they’re sensitive) start by putting them outside for 1 hour 7-10 days before you plan to transplant them outside. From there, slowly increase the time they spend outside each day over the course of the next 6-9 days until they are able to spend all day outside. This helps prevent transplant shock, which can kill the new seedlings that you have put so much effort into growing! Be sure to give the seedlings a good watering and check to make sure they’re not drying up too much throughout the day, as things such as wind tend to dry them out faster. Once your seedlings are able to spend all day outside, they are ready to be transplanted to their permanent home in the garden!

Tips

• We have learned that using compostable cardboard egg cartons instead of a plastic seed starting container causes the soil to dry out very quickly and promotes mold growth. We had seen this sustainable recommendation on many blogs, however, we found it just didn’t work for us. 

• Like we mentioned before, you don’t have to buy specific grow lights! An LED shop light like the one linked above works just as well and is much more cost effective.

• When you transplant the seedlings into individual containers once they’ve developed their true leaves, don’t forget to label the containers somehow! We forgot to do this for a few of our plants our first year and ended up planting 10 of what we thought to be sweet pepper plants but were actually habanero peppers (yikes).

• Even though you will be tempted, be sure to not over-water your seeds. This will cause moldy and diseased seedlings. A good rule of thumb is to make sure that the soil feels a bit damp at all times, but never soaked.

• Lastly, have fun with it! Your first few years of seed starting and gardening are all about learning through trial and error. It’s okay if you screw something up, it’s all a learning experience! Try to take the stress out of gardening and remember that it should be an activity that is relaxing and enjoyable!

A cute photo I found of Ellie watching me start seeds (she had just been spayed and was rocking the cone of shame).

And there you have it! Your complete guide to starting seeds indoors. With a little work before the garden season goes into full swing you can get a head start on growing your garden and harvesting all the tasty veggies your heart desires! We hope this helps guide you and makes your seed starting process easier and less intimidating! Keep in mind that this is a very simple guide and that there are plenty of other things you can add do or add to this process (such as using heating pads or small greenhouse setups) if you want to be a bit more fancy. We like to keep things simple and straight-forward over here, so this is what works best for us!

If you’ve started seeds before and have any additional tips of tricks you want to share, we would love to hear them! Be sure to leave a comment below so that everyone can gather new ideas and helpful tips!

If you’re new to seed starting we would also encourage you to leave a comment and tell us how your seed starting experience went and what you’re most excited about planting this year! We can’t wait to read your responses!

Happy gardening!