How I Plan My Garden Part 3: When do I start my seeds?

In Part 2 I decided what I wanted to plant, based on my big picture goals.  In Part 1 I took a good look at last year's garden to decide what I want to repeat this year, and what I want to change.  I'm ready to buy seeds.  I know what in planting and how many, but when do I plant?

Good news!  Starting seeds happens progressively through winter and spring, depending on the type of seed, not all at once.

Most seed packets include basic instructions around planting time, and many of these instructions reference your "last frost day" or planting before or after "all danger of frost."  Thankfully, that's an easy to find date.  It's the day in spring when you're likely to have one last frost before temperatures stay above freezing for good. Type your zipcode into a calculator like the one here at Dave's Garden and then take note of the date around the 30% chance, to be safe.  Once that day comes, you'll need to look at your weather forecast to see if it's really the last chance of frost, but for now it's a date to count back from so you'll have plant-able seedlings when the time comes.

I mark this day on a wall calendar, and mark every week before it, going all the way back to midwinter.  This way when I read, "start 6 weeks before last frost" I can easily flip to the week marked six and make note of which seeds need to be started then.

Last year I bought a nifty "perpetual calendar" from Fruition Seeds that gives space for three columns after each date.  Each column is a year, so I can easily move information over from one year to the next.  You can see entries here for two years, last year and this.

I sort through all the seed packs, find the information on when to start, and then write it down on that week.  This way, I only have to figure this stuff out once and then look it up each week, instead of counting on my memory (dangerous) or re-sorting through seed packs every week wondering, "do I need to start any of these today?" which would certainly take a lot of the fun out of this hobby.

Once they're all noted on the calendar, I physically lay the packets out in order of planting week.  Once they're in order, I put them back into storage in order, behind little cards noting the date.  Every week I check the calendar "what do I get to start this week?" and then go into the seed box to pull out a preset collection of seed packs.  I also write planting dates on the calendar, and hardening off dates 2 weeks before each planting date.

So what about seeds whose planting date references something other than last frost?  Like tomatoes, which are to be planted, "once the soil has warmed to 50*F" or "once the nighttime lows are reliably over 50*F."?  Sure, when the time comes I can read a forecast and a soil thermometer with the best of them, but without a time machine I can't then go back 8 weeks and tell myself, "time to start the tomatoe seeds."  This is where it's great to find other local gardeners.  Ask in local online gardening forums and in local garden shops,* "When is it safe here to plant tomatoes, beans, peppers, etc?"  

If you are starting with seedlings, not seeds, it's still good to organize your purchasing and planting around a calendar.  peas and greens can take some frost or even snow, especially if you're directly planting the seeds into your garden, but tomatoes and peppers need to wait until much later.  There's never just one day to put in the full garden if you're growing more than one kind of vegetable.  I find it's well worth it to spend a few hours on a winter holiday break to set up the calendar just once, and then follow the plan from there forward.

A few words about aquiring seeds:  Seeds last for years.  Don't feel you have to use up the whole packet the same year you buy it.  Store what you don't use this year for the future.  The most important thing about seed storage is keeping them dry.  Save silica packets (those little rectangles that say "do not eat") from shoes, vitamins, etc and put them into the same well sealed container as your seeds.  For really long lasting seeds, store the sealed container in the freezer.  How long seeds last depends on the type.  There are lots of handy charts for that, including this one from The Spruce.

If you are purchasing seeds, buy them from a reputable seed company or that local garden shop.  I've heard a lot of stories of people getting screwed buying seeds from amazon or ebay.  Personally, I wouldn't.

There are lots of free seeds in the world!  Starting with that packet you saved from last year.  Save the seeds you grow.  It's a huge topic, and the process can be very different from one plant to another, but tomato, pepper, and dried bean seeds are among the easiest to save and a great place to start.  You may also have a local seed library.  Ask around, do an internet search.  The added benefit of getting seeds that your neighbors have grown out and donated to a seed library is that you know for sure that someone has grown them successfully in your area.  I start the calendar process with the seeds I already own, as that helps me figure out what's missing that I'll need to find or purchase.

One last word about seeds:  you cannot accidentally buy GMO seeds.  Lots of seed companies state that they aren't selling GMO seeds, with wording that implies that maybe somebody else is, but in reality, GMO seeds are proprietary, and you need to pretty much be a farmer, and definitely sign a contract to buy them.  Please don't just take my word for it, after all I'm some lady on the internet you've never actually met.  Instead, here's an article from the garden professors, and one from gardening know how.  There's lots more out there if you're interested in searching for them.

I hope that this short series has helped you get on top of garden planning.  It can be overwhelming to narrow down what you want and where to start, but once you have a routine down it's very easy to adjust and repeat.  I'm especially hoping this is helpful to all the new gardeners of the last few years, and helps you enjoy more and worry less!

*Local garden shops, not the garden section of big box stores.  Why?  Because the employees there have to be ready to work in any department, and just because someone is working in the garden section that day, doesn't mean it's their area of expertise.  My career is in building costumes for theater, dance, and opera.  I'm an excellent tailor and seamstress, and right out of college I worked in a large corporate fabrics and crafts store.  I could have been a great source of advice for anyone who had questions about sewing clothing.  In two years, I maybe got that question once.  Instead, thanks to that guy Murphy, I got asked about glue, and embroidery, and scrapbooking, which I know nothing about.  My co-workers who could have answered the glue question got the clothing question on my day off.  So if you have a question in a big box store about gardening and the employee doesn't know, don't hold it against them.  You're probably talking to someone who is an expert in plumbing or paint.  Better to build a relationship with the employees in a local garden shop, who focus exclusively on gardening, and garden in the same region as you do.

How I Plan My Garden: Part 2, What Do You Want to Plant?

Part 1 talks about starting from an existing garden, but what if you're planting a new garden?  or your first garden?  Starting can be overwhelming, because we want everything!  Every flower, every fruit and vegetable and herb, and all the trees!  You probably don't have infinite space, time, and money to grow absolutely everything.  Yes, climate and light will eliminate some things from the list but to really narrow it down and still plant a garden you truly enjoy, you'll want to focus on what's most important.

This is the time to think about your big picture questions.  Why do I garden?  Why am I making this garden?  Recognize that you may have different answers for different gardens around your property, and ask them for each.  Give yourself permission to apply different priorities to each garden.  You don't have to make every one of them for pollinators, or strictly organic, or highly productive.  It's your garden.

What do I plant? comes from Why do I garden?  And Why this garden?

For Flavor  This is why so many gardeners start with tomatoes!  Grocery store tomatoes just don't compare to home grown.  If this is you, prioritize growing the fruit and veg that taste significantly better than store bought, and look for varieties whose descriptions mention excellent flavor!  If it tastes the same as what you can buy, you don't need to grow it.

To Save Money  We've all heard the jokes about the $200 tomato, but you really can save money by growing your own over buying.  If this is your goal, look for the most expensive items on your grocery list, and prioritize space for them in your garden.  I recommend growing your own herbs.  One bunch from the store costs several dollars, and I often can't finish a big bunch of parsley before it goes bad.  A pack of parsley seeds costs the same as that bunch and provides years of parsley...and speaking of seed...search for local seed libraries, where you can get a wide variety of seeds for free.  You can't beat free!  If you're more of a flower grower, look to perrenials that you only have to pay for once, and join any local gardening groups in person or online.   Gardeners often give away perennial divisions to anyone willing to come pick them up.

Even garden amendment can be free.  If your town collects branches and leaves, they may well have a pile of free wood chips and a pile of free leaf mold compost for the taking.  

Preserving the harvest can cover your needs for a full year.  You can replace most or all of your canned and frozen vegetable purchases, based on how you strategize your garden.

Save your own seeds to plant the next year.  I've never bought garlic because I save and replant some of what I grow each year.

For the Environment/Wildlife  This is a fun one, because there is so much out there for you right now!  Look into planting natives, and meadows, and permaculture guilds.  Even if you only prioritize planting for insects, you will benefit the whole ecosystem, because everything else up the food chain eats them.  One of the best things you can do for insect and birds is less.  Less cleanup, less cutback...who doesn't love doing less work and watching more life in the yard?

To Avoid Pesticides  If this is important to you, find one of those dirty dozen lists and prioritize growing anything on it that you love to eat and can grow in your climate.  For instance, bell peppers always make the list.  They are easy to grow in my climate, and I've never had a pest problem with them.  I'm working towards growing all of my peppers for the year, which also goes back to gardening to save money.  I overwinter my peppers, so I've maybe spend $15 in seed and soil over several years.  $15 buys what, a dozen or less organic peppers?  My plants have paid for themselves several times over, even with the cost of the lights they sit under for the winter.

For Family/Cultural Heritage  My father grew up in the southwestern US, and learned to cook Chinese food from a second generation Chinese friend/roommate.  When he moved to Western New York State in the 60s, he couldn't get the foods he had grown up with.  He came here as a young adult a year or so after his parents.  The story goes that he filled his station wagon with coolers full of dry ice and tortillas for his parents and every formerly southwestern friend they had made in the area.  In my childhood, Dad grew many varieties of peppers for both Chinese and southwestern cuisine that couldn't be bought here.  He also got seeds from owners of the local chinese groceries.  My Italian husband's grandfather was one of many Italian immigrants in our area who had the expertise to grow fig trees in USDA zones 5-6.  It's wonderful to grow our own heritage fruits and veg that aren't consistently available in stores.  Seed catalogues have vast offerings, and recently I've discovered a few companies that specialize.  Kitazawa Seed Company is over 100 years old and specializes in Asian vegetables.  True Love Seeds sells seeds from around the globe.  I heard abou them through Soul Fire Farm, an organization I support, who grow seeds of the African Diaspora for them.  These folx are growing peanuts in New York State!  That's some impressive heritage growing!

For Beauty  Grow some gorgeous plants!  Even food plants can be beautiful when presented that way and intermixed with flowers!  or just grow the foliage and flowers!  Just because I'm obsessed with food doesn't mean you need to be!

For Ease of Care  Let's be honest.  Some ways of gardening are back breaking.  I can't speak for you, but I want to live a long life, and garden up to my last day.  I've been reworking a lot around my garden to make it easier as I get older, trying to stay ahead of the curve.  I'm raising beds and widening paths.  Perennials are always less work than annuals.  Keeping up with mulching is easier than weeding.  Meadow plantings and forest gardens practically take care of themselves.  Each time I plant a new bed, I want it to be less work, and less environmental impact, than the lawn it replaces.

For Sense of Place  For me there is something about how gardening connects me to the seasons and the flow of time.  Native plantings also connect me to my place on this land.  Trying to plant so that something is blooming or harvest-able at each day through the year keeps me connected.  So does watching the birds, insects, and other wildlife.  If you have a harvest/bloom gap, look around your area for what others have blooming or ripe at that time and consider adding it.  Use your plantings as needed sources of shade, or wind blocks.  It's also ok to have times of rest in the garden.

To Experiment  In the age of "fake news" its nice to know that we can test nearly every gardening claim.  Someone says, "you have to put this in the hole when you plant tomatoes"  I can plant half of my tomatoes with "this" in the hole, and half without, and take note of yield and plant health over the rest of the summer.  My garden is my science outlet, and if that sounds exciting to you, keep your eye out for places you can do side by side comparisons.  They will help inform your long term success.

For Joy  Enjoy every bit of your garden.  Do the things that bring you joy, let go of those that don't,  If you're satisfied with what you have, don't listen to anyone who tells you it's "wrong."  If you aren't satisfied, visit other gardens, think deeply, find what you need, and if it isn't there yet, add it.  Happy gardening.

How I plan my garden: part 1 assessing the past year

One of the best things about gardening is variety and diversity.  Every garden has it's own soil, light, climate, microclimate, and variety and layout of plants.  Even my next door neighbor won't have exactly the same conditions as me.  My goal with this series is not to dictate to you, dear reader, the ONLY WAY TO GARDEN but to share my experience and point to strategies that I hope can apply widely.  Take from this what is useful, leave behind what isn't.  Combine it with all the other useful information, experience, and advice you find, and create your own garden.

Context--I garden in the northern hemisphere--Western New York State, not far from either Lake Erie or Lake Ontario.  I'm in a small town in a fairly open space.  Growing zone 5b, lattitude about 43*North, frost free from mid May to mid October.  Summer highs in low 90s.  Winter lows can get below 0*F, but don't stay there.  Teens and 20s is more usual.

Take notes  I have established gardens--a vegetable garden and several perennial beds.  Planning any year's garden starts with a full assessment of the previous year.  I take notes throughout the gardening year of anything I think I will want to know later.  Planting times and weather conditions, harvests, what got eaten or died--it's all useful.  Lots of people make spreadsheets or use journal apps.  I tried, but have discovered that a notebook is what's right for me.  I leave space around entries so I can go back and add relevant notes, like the one here.  The original entry is seeds that I started indoors.  I later added the note "6 weeks--good!" i.e. that they were exactly right to plant out six weeks later.

Assess the previous year  In late summer/early fall I walk through all of my gardens and write a detailed summation of how everything did, what kind of harvest I got, etc.  If I worked from memory I would probably remember all of the failures and half of the successes.  By physically walking the property and writing about every bed, I better capture the full story.  This is the time of year that most of the vegetable garden is either in full production or has just finished, so I can capture in the present tense what I wish I had harvested more of and what looks like it struggled due to lack of sun, too much water, too little, etc. I can also note what did really well.  This is the starting point for planning next year's garden.  I can plan to move the plants that need more sun, grow twice as much of the vegetable that was a big hit, eliminate the one that didn't produce enough to justify the space it took up, or try a new variety that might taste better, produce more, produce sooner, etc.

Measure garden beds  If I have built any new beds, fall is a great time to measure them, so that by the time the snow falls I can do my planning in the warmth of the house.  The vegetable beds are rectangles and seed packets specify spacing, so it's an easy bit of multiplication to figure out how much space x number of seedlings will need.  If that amount of math makes you sweat, or you are not working in rectangles, let me suggest my method for planning irregularly shaped beds.  I get the spacing for the desired plant from the seed packet, plant label, or catalogue description and put a marker--I like used takeout chopsticks--each place I want a plant based on that spacing.  When I'm done I count the markers, and I can leave them in place until planting time.  

I love using these wooden carpenter's rulers in the garden.  No danger of them snapping back like a carpenter's tape measure, and they are hinged every six inches.  6, 12, and 18 inches are incredibly common plants spacings, so it's almost more counting than measuring....

Draw the beds  Then I make a drawing of next year's garden with all of those adjustments included.  I rotate my garden beds, meaning that I don't grow the same thing in the same place each year.  Long ago I established an order for how the 5 beds rotate, so this drawing will be of those new positions, too.  i.e. If tomatoes were in bed 1, next year they will be in 3.

Why? My winter is dark and snowy, so getting all of this info in fall when it's still pleasant outside, means I can change the plan as many times as I want in front of a warm fire.  Seed companies have a fresh batch of seeds by the first day of winter, and this is the information I need to know how many seeds to buy, or how many plants to order.

Replacing peat moss with PittMoss

 Recently, I've been looking for a way to replace peat moss.  I have been using it as a major component of both potting mix and seed starting mix.

I've found it difficult to really get good information on how sustainable the harvest of Canadian peat is.  I fully admit that intelligent people have and will come to different conclusions about it's sustainability, based on the available information.  I've decided to find something that I can be sure has a smaller environment footprint, and doesn't threaten an ancient eco-system.  

Lots of people have switched to coconut coir.  If it's working for you, great!  You have my blessing.  For me there are three reasons I'm not impressed.  One is that I've seen other gardeners do comparisons between starting seeds in traditional peat mixes and in coir mixes, and the plants in coir did terribly.  Downright sickly compared to the peat.  Second is that I'm not convinced that shipping coir halfway around the world is more sustainable than responsibly harvested peat from my own continent.  Finally, if coir can be a useful soil amendment, I have issue with removing organic soil nutrition from poor nations and further stripping their agricultural wealth.  

So yeah, that's a no for me on coir.

A few years ago I heard about a peat substitute being made out of waste paper near Pittsburg.  It's called PittMoss, because it's like peat, but made in Pittsburg, get it?  So right away that ticks some environmental boxes for me.  It's using a waste product, so not only is it not being harvested from a threatened ecosystem, it's also taking garbage out of the wastestream.  And it's being manufactured practically in my backyard compared to far northern peat bogs or Asian coconut trees.

I had to try it.

My garden is my science outlet, so I love setting up good, single variable, side by side comparisions when I have a question I want to answer.  I mix my own seed starting and potting mix in order to save money, have control over the ingredients, and make a lot at one time.  So my standard mix is: 1/3 compost, 1/3 perlite, 1/3 peat, and a small amount of ash to correct the acidicy of the peat.  Using 5 gallon buckets for the big components, an old tea cup of wood ash is enough, as pictured.

Mixed:

Then I mixed the trial version:  1/3 compost, 1/3 perlite, and 1/3 PittMoss Prime.  No ash as Pitt doesn't need the pH corrected.

This is the PittMoss Prime.  Up close it has some bits of color.

I started this trial on May 28th with my tomatoes.  I chose well matched seedlings in terms of size and color, two of each variety.  For each pair, one was planted into the peat mix, and one into the Pitt mix.  A little more than 2 weeks later, on June 14th, there was a marked difference in size and fullness of the plants in each pair.  The healthy plant is the peat, the stunted is the Pitt.  

Hm.  Looks like a lack of nutrition.  So I added a top dressing of two inches of compost (under the straw) to all of the plants, Pitt and peat alike.  From that point forward, the Pitt plants filled out and looked healthy.  They stayed smaller than the peat, but grew at the same rate from there forward.  Ok, so maybe this parallels the trouble I've seen with coir, and is evidence that peat moss contributes more nutrition than we tend to give it credit for.  The next step of my comparision was seed starting.  I continued to use the same peat mixture, but changed the Pitt mixture to:  1/2 compost, 1/3 perlite, and 1/6 Pitt, or 1 bucket compost, 1 bucket perlite, and 1 bucket half PittMoss Prime and half compost.

I thought for sure I had solved it--just needs a higher proportion of compost--but as I trialed seedlings side by side, they germinated at about the same time, grew to the point of their first true leaves, then while the peat seedlings continued to grow, the Pitt stalled out at this size.  These are thyme seedlings that illustrate this, along with another really interesting result, which is that when I plant 4-10 seeds in each mix, I am often getting one or two more germinating in the Pitt than in the peat.  So it's not bad stuff, but clearly there's something else the mix needs to be successful.

I was stymied, so wrote to the PittMoss company.  I showed them the pictures.  They said, "I'm going to have one of our soil scientists get back to you."  Really?!  A soil scientist?!  Woohoo!  The soil scientist was most interested in the tomato pictures.  From his email:

"From the photos it is apparent that there is a significant nutrient deficiency in the blend with the Pitt Moss Prime.  It appears by the purpling of the leaves that there is clearly a phosphate deficiency and possibly the small size indicates nitrate deficiency as well.  The fact that the compost increased the growth rate is significant.

"As a basis for what was likely taking place remember that PittMoss Prime has no inherant nutrient supply while it has a very high nutrient holding capability once the nutrients have been applied.  The blends of Plentiful and Performance have nutrients supplied in the formulation...When blending other material with PittMoss Prime it should be remembered that the high carbon content of the Prime will also require a high nitrogen addition to balance the demand...I susupect that by adding a good balance of fertilizers and or manures with some compost the end product will be similar to what we produce in the PittMoss Plentiful and Performance...If continuing to use PittMoss Prime I suggest both composts of good quality and some dehydrated poultry manure for the organic grower.  Otherwise soluble plant food..."

The carbon was tying up the nitrogen!  Of course!  So with that knowledge, I've begun fertilizing the Pitt seedlings with a dilute fish and seaweed fertilizer once a week.  This is standard practice for many seed starters, but because I use a mix with compost (a bit unusual for seed starting) I had been getting by without it.  Certainly not a problem to add it into my routine now.

After a few weeks of seaweed, the seedlings look good and are growing at a better rate.  In the case of my broccoli seedlings, the Pitt seedlings have completely caught up to the peat, and some are now bigger!

Blue pots on the left are the Pitt, right is peat.

Conclusions:  I'll continue this comparison through my seed starting this spring, but with the addition of fertilizing the Pitt seedlings with half strength fish and seaweed fertilizer once they have their first true leaves.  Based on the broccoli, I expect this to go well and think from here forward I will be using PittMoss for my seeds and container plants.  Next year I plan to trial the two different proportions of the Pitt mixture against each other.

2022 Update:  I did indeed do another trial, this time comparing a mix of 1 bucket each of PittMoss Prime, compost, and perlite, PLUS 2 tea cups of feather meal to PittMoss Plentiful right out of the bag.  Either/both of these worked beautifully!  The plants are much healthier this way and didn't need any supplemental liquid fertilizer.  I think this is because as the email from PittMoss soil scientist Dr. Bethke points out above, the additional nitrogen was needed not for the plants' direct use, but to balance with the carbon content of Prime.  Plentiful already contains the small amount of nitrogen I had to add to Prime, so from here forward it will be my go to, either on it's own or in the mix.  As PittMoss is getting more popular, it's nice to know that if they run out of Plentiful, I can get the same results using Prime as long as I mix two cups of feather meal (or other high nitrogen organic granular ferilizer) into every 5 gallons of Prime. 

If you do decide to compare one of these options to your old seed starting mix, I'd love to see your results!  Please share in the comments.

I've found PittMoss for sale from their own website, www.pittmoss.com from A.M. Leonard www.amleo.com and of course on Amazon.