Sowing Seeds VS Starting Transplants
I recently spotted spinach seedlings for sale, which is really kind of silly. Spinach grows readily from seed. So buying a four-inch pot with ten spinach seedlings in it just doesn’t make any sense when you could buy a packet of seed and sow a five-foot long row for the same price.
That said, the urge to get a head start is hard to resist and it can be kind of confusing to decide what to sow and what to plant out as a seedling, so I thought I’d share what I do in my garden.
Vegetables to Direct Sow
Some plants resent having their roots disturbed, and are thus best suited to direct sowing (planting seed right in the garden), while others germinate so quickly it doesn’t really pay off to sow them indoors under lights or buy seedlings. Direct sowing also offers a number of advantages: seeds come in a bigger range of varieties than seedlings, are less expensive, and, if stored correctly, can last more than one season. On the con side, directly-sown plants take longer to mature than those planted out as seedlings. For instance, you can harvest a head of lettuce planted as a seedling in about a month, but you’ll need to wait 8 weeks or so to harvest heads of lettuce directly sown into the garden.
I always direct sow these vegetables, herbs, and flowers:
Arugula
Beans (pole and bush)
Beets
Broccoli rabe
Carrots
Cilantro
Corn
Cosmos
Edamame
Mustard greens
Radishes
Spinach
Sunflowers
Vegetables to Plant as Seedlings
I plant most warm season crops and slow growing brassicas as seedlings because the little plants give me a huge head start on the season. Depending on where you live, it may make more sense to direct sow squash, cucumbers, and melons by seed because they don’t transplant well if the seedlings have more than one set of true leaves. You can start your own seedlings indoors under lights or buy them at a nursery. I buy most of my seedlings because I have a small house and a hectic schedule, so the nursery route is just easier, though definitely not cheaper.
These plants do best for me when planted as seedlings:
Big brassicas (cabbage, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, and cauliflower)
Chives
Cucumbers
Eggplant
Ground cherries
Melons
Peppers
Perennial herbs (rosemary, sage, thyme, lovage, savory)
Strawberries
Summer squash
Tomatoes
Tomatillos
Winter squash (including pumpkins)
Vegetables to Grow from Seed and Starts
For plants that grow well from seed or starts (including Asian greens, lettuce, peas, and annual flowers), I often plant out some of both on the same day. That way, I get a staggered harvest, with the starts maturing before the directly-sown plants. I also prefer to harvest directly-sown greens at the baby stage and allow seedlings to mature into heads. Seedlings also give me the flexibility to plant onions, leeks, lettuces and other greens at exactly the right spacing (no thinning required!) and in pretty patterns—I’m especially fond of planting rows of lettuce with alternating green and red-leafed varieties.
I plant both seedlings and starts of these vegetables, herbs, and annual flowers:
Asian greens
Basil
Chervil
Dill
Fennel
Kale
Leeks
Peas (English, sugar snap, and snow)
Parsley
Scallions
Strawberries
Sweet peas
Swiss chard
Zinnias
This was really helpful. Thank you!
April 5th, 2010 at 8:52 am.-= LadyJayPee´s last blog ..Potato-Onion Frittata =-.
Oh good, I’ve been doing something right…thanks!
April 5th, 2010 at 11:48 amare your carrots under a cloche or did you plant early b/c of our weather?
April 5th, 2010 at 2:03 pmFabulous info!
I’m a big fan of both starts and seeds – I find it hard to be a purist at anything. This is a great, useful list – I will refer to it time and time again, I KNOW IT!
New answer to hard veg gardening questions : WWWD? (What Would Willi DO?)
XOXOIvette!
April 5th, 2010 at 4:52 pm.-= Germi´s last blog ..A Lascivious Shrub =-.
Willi, this is great information. I see we buy many of the same transplants and direct sow many of the same veggies. Because I live in such a hot climate with a long season, I plant seeds for my squash and melons. I did see plants at the store tonight though when I bought some tomato plants. Thanks for putting some good info on the Net.~~Dee
April 5th, 2010 at 5:43 pm.-= Dee @ Red Dirt Ramblings´s last blog ..Dear Friends and Gardeners, April 5, 2010 =-.
the nice thing is if you plant by seed and it doesn’t work, you’re not out a ton of cash plus you can go buy starts
April 5th, 2010 at 7:00 pm.-= aimee´s last blog ..Peanut Butta…. =-.
Thanks for this information–where do you find ground cherry seedlings? I have tried and tried to grow these, but it never seems to work out for me. Thanks!
April 6th, 2010 at 7:53 amKim K, you can get transplants of Ground Cherry from Seed Savers Exchange. You’ll receive Aunt Molly’s.
April 6th, 2010 at 12:16 pmI find that cukes, winter and summer squash and pumpkins do fine when seeded into hills in the garden. In fact they don’t suffer any transplant shock and often catch up to the transplants set out at the same time. I see so many people start these guys and let them get too leggy before getting them into the ground. If the soil is nice and warn they will come right up and GROW!!! Can’t wait!
April 7th, 2010 at 1:15 amLaura–Last year I tried growing my cucurbits in small wells instead of hills. It worked really well! I always have a problem with the soil eroding from the hills and exposing the roots, when I planted in the wells, I gradually back filled them with with soil as the plants grew. I think I’m going to try starting some plants from seed and others as starts this year. I’ve had good luck direct seeding cucumbers and summer squash in the past, but not as much pumpkins and other winter squash. I think that you’re right, warm soil is definitely the key.
April 7th, 2010 at 8:46 amIlonda–That’s where I’ve gotten mine before too!
April 7th, 2010 at 8:48 amI sow everything from seed and I gotta tell you, I stand by my soil blocker. I even blocked corn, peas, beets, radishes. Once the seed germinates in their 2″ by 2″ soil block I transplant into the garden. I am able to save seed and space appropriately with minimal if any root disturbance.
I won’t mention any names but I once saw a 4″ container of RADISHES for sale. There where about 3 or 4 in the container. Wha?
April 7th, 2010 at 9:25 am.-= Adriana @ Anarchy in the Garden´s last blog ..You Gotta Eat – Vegan Cookbook Give-a-Way! =-.
Thanks Ilonda!
April 8th, 2010 at 9:55 amI usually get my tomatoe starts from a farmer right outside of downtown Carnation. He has a bunch of great varieties and REALLY good prices. I found some super cool heirloom varieties from Baker Creek this year though so I went ahead and tried my hand at starting from seed. They’re definitely not ready to go outside yet but so far my seedlings are going crazy! I was very skeptical about how they’d do but so far they’ve been a piece of cake… I’ve got my fingers crossed that they keep on thriving.
Right now they’re still in newspaper pots in my little greenhouse with lights on them about 14 – 16 hours a day. Now that I’ve got them going do I need to worry about any issues cropping up or do I just keep on doing what I’m doing until they’re ready to put in the ground?
April 12th, 2010 at 2:32 pmJamie–I just up potted my tomatoes that I started on 3/21 into four inch pots. So you might want to move yours into bigger pots at this time. You can plant them deeply in the pot (bury the stem in soil up to right below the lowest set of leaves). A week before you’re ready to put them in the ground, you’ll need to “harden them off”, which means that you take them outdoors for a gradually increasing amount of time. I usually plant mine at the end of May. Good luck!
April 16th, 2010 at 8:14 am