Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Seed Talk

Many plants benefit from a head start by sowing indoors during late winter and early spring. For a few crops, notably peppers and tomatoes, this indoor start is an absolute requirement if growing from seed. These tender, tropical plants will be killed outright by frost, and will show immediate signs of distress if exposed to cold spring weather. So the gardener’s strategy is to make an educated guess about when it will be warm enough to transplant them outdoors, and work backwards from that date according to which crop is involved. Tomatoes, peppers, and many perennial flowers require a good...

The weather outdoors is cold and gloomy. Here on the coast it is altogether wet — the ground is sodden and squishy. Elsewhere, the first blankets of snow are falling, and the ground is freezing hard. Only the most spirited of winter gardeners are still making trips to the greenhouse, low tunnels, or raised beds at this time of year. Winter doesn't officially even start until the third week in December, and then it goes on for three solid months. It's not very intuitive to think about starting seeds this early for the coming spring and summer. Yet some plants...

One of the factors that most influences the germination rate of seeds is how they are stored. Like the plants that produce them, seeds come in all sorts of forms and sizes. They are also variable in their longevity. Since seed packets often contain more seeds than might be needed in one season, it’s important for gardeners to learn how to store seeds. Vegetable seeds that are considered “long-lived” include the Brassicas (broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cauliflower, cabbage, collards, kohlrabi…) the chicory group (endive, escarole, radicchio), cucumber, kale, lettuce, melons, mustards, peppers, radish, rutabaga, sunflower, tomato and turnips. Stored correctly, these...