Time to Start Your Seeds

In Inuvik I usually follow the rule of not starting seeds at home until a week after Easter but Easter was really early this year but this is probably still a good guideline. If you start too early you will have a house full of veggie plants and will be transplanting peas stalks in full bloom in May to the greenhouse! Don't be the newbie fool! :)

Here are some good tips to starting seeds at home:

1. Only start tomatoes, cucumbers, squash and maybe some herbs. Everything else can put straight into the ground as seed in May.

2. Just start a few seeds of each variety, do not plant every seed in the package!

3. Use a starter tray and peat pellets. This is my recommended way and so easy. Add water to the grow the pellets and plant 3-4 seeds in each pellet. As they grow you can split them into a bigger container if all the seeds sprout. ** Best tip- Seeds need dirt, water and SUN to geminate. Do not cover them in dirt as they need to see the sun. Just make a few indents in the soil pellet and place the seeds in the little holes, lighter cover if you wish but remember that sun is needed!

4. Remember that the greenhouse sells great tomato and herb starters for your veggie garden and you will probably want to buy these. They tend not to sell cucumber and squash so I start those at home for sure. I find that the started plants will grow much faster than the seed/plants I start at home.

Finally, even when the greenhouse opens in May, you will probably wait a couple weeks before beginning in your transplants from home. We can always expect a little snow or cold spurt in May that makes it dicey for these plants outside, even in the greenhouse.

Happy dreaming about garden season.

S.