How to Successfully Sow Seeds Outdoors

When you plant your garden, the most cost effective way to grow it is to plant seeds instead of buying every single plant start. This is especially true when going things like onions, carrots and lettuces. They only produce one plant from the seed, so each carrot seed produces one carrot. So if you by an onion already started, the cost might end up being more than buying a bag of carrots from the store! Starting your own seeds is also easy. It might take a few tries to get it to work for you, but I'm sure if you  make sure you are giving the plant what it needs, it will grow for you.

1. First step is to make sure the soil where you are planting has lots of great organic matter added to it, and is nice and loose. This is particularly true for carrots and other root plants. They cannot grow downward in very compacted soil.


2. Soak the seeds for a little while. This could be 30 min to an hour. Just put the seeds in a little bowl and pour in some water. This gets the seeds activated. Its like pushing a start button. Tells them, " There is water, you can start growing!"  A seed needs first- water, then sunlight and soil.


3. Plant the seeds in the garden, making sure to follow the right depth for the seed. Some very small seeds need only a skiff of soil to cover them. The smaller the seed, the less soil they need, the larger seeds like peas and beans, need more soil to cover them up.


4. Keep them moist. They do not need to be soaking wet all the time, but do not let the soil dry out too much as this will draw the moisture stored inside the seed out and kill the seed. But the seed will also not grow if it is too wet. The seed and plant roots in general need access to some air in the soil. So being too wet, makes it hard to get that air. This is why looser soil grows better plants- they have more oxygen and room for the roots to push through the soil.


5. Label the plants. There is nothing worse than forgetting to label your plants and have a totally different plant grow in a spot you thought you had planted something. This especially helps if you have different varieties for the same plant, such as a few different kinds of onions or tomatoes.

Growing your garden from seed can be very rewarding and cost effective.  After you are done planting, if you have seeds left, you can save those for next year. Simply put them in a bottle with a lid, and place in the back of a refrigerator. Keeping them sealed in a jar helps them keep the moisture they do have inside the seeds, and the refrigerator also helps them to stay cool and last longer. After you master starting your garden by seed, the next step would be learning how to harvest your own seeds and thus never having to even buy seeds!

Happy Gardening!