Don't Start Your Seeds too Early!

It’s January and I know very soon, I’m going to be itching to plant my seeds indoors. This is such a joyful time of hope and anticipation.

I know, you’re itching to start your garden too. But hold on to your horses…

One of the most common mistakes you can make is starting crops too early inside.

Why is this a problem?

Nothing stresses a plant more than being confined for too long.

They deplete resources from the potting mix and they start to grow their roots in circles, becoming root-bound in their tiny pots.

Unless you have A LOT of space and plenty of lights, it’s best to practice restraint and start your seeds a bit later.

Here’s how to figure out planting dates for your garden plants.

1. Figure out your last frost date.

2. Read the back of your seed packet or look up your specific variety in a seed catalog. It should give recommendations on when to plant indoors. They will say something like: plant 6-8 weeks before the last frost. For this specific example, I’d go with the 6-week start date.

3. If they recommend to direct seed, start indoors only 2 weeks before planting out OR just direct seed. These plants usually don’t appreciate root disturbance.

4. Write down on your calendar what you’re starting and when.

5. Take notes as you go, throughout the growing season. If something gets really root-bound and is sluggish to grow after you pop it in the garden, make a note. You might try to start a week later the following year. Your garden journal is your biggest friend. If you don’t have one, start one NOW.

So, you might be wondering what I’m starting first?

By the way, I’m starting seeding a full week later than last year.

In 2022, all my cool season crops were spot on in regard to planting time. But all my warm loving crops could have benefited from getting started a week (or two) later.

Just for you, here’s a sneak peek at my first week of seed starting, which is coming up fast folks!

Turnstone Farm seed starting the week of March 12th:

Oregano

Sage

Rosemary

Thyme

Snapdragon - Potomac Varieties. These guys grow relatively slow and love the cool spring temps. I try to start these as early as I can because they can be planted before the last frost.

If I was starting perennials that I may want to bloom the first year, I’d start them now too.

Thats it for my first week of planting.

Happy garden planning!

Field Notes: Week 13

We celebrated my mom’s 70th birthday this past weekend! Along with another dump of snow and low temperatures, winter is persisting. Here’s what I seeded this week:

Amaranthus: coral fountain & Emerald tassels

Ammobium: winged everlasting

Bupleurum

Celosia: Chief Mix OP

Cerinthe: Kiwi Blue

Cosmos: double click snow puff & double click bicolor violet

Heliopsis (P): Burning Hearts

HIbiscus: Mahogany Splendor

Rudbeckia: prairie sun & Cherokee sunset

Ruby Silk

Eucalyptus: lemon bush

Broccoli: belstar & blue wind

Field Notes: Week 12

Here’s what I seeded this week:

Stock - Iron Rose, Iron Apricot and Iron Yellow (I only grow the Iron varieties nowadays)

Dusty Miller - New Look (I love this stuff but it’s finicky in the vase. We’ll see how much I actually use)

Ammi - Dara

Atriplex - Copper and Red

Frosted Explosion (an amazing ornamental grass)

Statice - Blue, White, Apricot, Rosyred (new color!!)

Artemesia - Sweet Annie

Tomatoes - Sungold (my absolute favorite), Edox, Sakura, White Cherry, Chocolate Pear

Dahlias - planted the remainder of my dahlia tubers to equal 150 plants. Have some tubers left over. But my house is full.

Just about ready to transplant plants from a couple of weeks ago!

Came home from a weekend in Talkeetna to find an entire tray of seedlings all dried out!! NOOOO! Luckily they perked right up.

Half my dahlias are up and under the lights!

Field Notes: Week 11

March 15-21

Here’s what I seeded this week:

• Achillea-Cloth of Gold (40). Love this name. Also ordered Cassis, but there was a crop failure.

• Asclepias-Wild Orange Type (20), Snowy Milkweed (20)

• Gomphrena-QIS Orange (40)

• Echinacea-Bravado (20), Green Twister (20)

• Eryngium-White Glitter (40)

• Solidago-Golden Baby (20).

  Rudbeckia-Green Wizard (20), Cappuccino (20), Denver Daisy (20), Triloba (20)

A few dahlias are starting to sprout: Thomas Edison, Ben Huston, Cafe au Lait. So glad I’m not heating a greenhouse yet! It’s been cold (negative last night) and we got over a foot of snow in the last week.

Thomas Edison dahlia is the first to sprout! Once they sprout, put them under lights and start to water them regularly.

Field Notes: Week 10

March 8-14

I started my first round of seeds on March 9th. Everything this early goes into 3/4” soil blocks. Here’s a list of what I seeded with corresponding quantities:

• Monarda-Panorama Red (40)

• Oregano (40). 3-5 seeds per block

• Sage (40)

• Rosemary (40). Would have seeded thyme but realized I didn’t have thyme seeds. Ugh, something like this happens every year!

• Eucalyptus-Lemon Bush (60). There was a seed shortage/failure of 3 other eucalyptus vareiteis so I am only able to grow Lemon Bush this year. Hope it’s awesome as I’m in love with eucalyptus.

• Verbascum-Rosetta (20). NEW VARIETY. Trialing this!

• Snapdragons-Potomac Cherry, Potomac Appleblossom, Potomac Ivory, Potomac Royal (40 each)

• Gomphrena-QIS Carmine (10), Audray White (60). Looking forward to growing these again after a few years off.

• Dahlias-a whole buch of varieties (75)

Aside from dahlias, all plants are on a heat mat and under a light. Dahlias are in either a gallon pot or a 4” pot depending on tuber size.

Seed starting set up on the left. I have one shelf with lights so far! On the right, seeds have germinated! Ones in front are looking a bit leggy: need to lower my lights.

Starting your seeds indoors

After a long winter there’s nothing more hopeful than pushing seeds into fresh potting mix.

For many years I have been starting my seeds indoors under lights before transitioning them to an outdoor unheated hoophouse.

I want to share with you how easy seed starting can be!

I’ll start by outlining what you’ll need to get started:

• Pots and domes

• Seeds

• Potting mix or growing medium

• Lights

• Heat mats

• Shelves

Now I’ll walk you through each of the above items in more detail…

Pots and Domes

I use 11x21 inch trays and fill them with soil blocks. Interested in soil blocking? Read more HERE!

You can also use 4 pack or 6 pack plastic containers. Or plant straight into 3-4” pots. You can find all these options at your local garden store.

So should you choose a larger pot or smaller pot? If you plant into larger containers you won’t have to worry about transplanting later when your plants are getting big. But if you’re growing a lot of plants you’ll get more plants in less space if you use the 4 or 6 packs.

Also invest in a few plastic domes! These will help keep the humidity perfect for seed germination.

Seeds

Ready to order seeds? Go to my blog on where to order seeds HERE. It’ll help you get off to a great start.

Potting Mix

There are a few products that I really like. If you’re in Anchorage, you can find them at Southside Garden Supply or Alaska Mill and Feed.

1) Pro-mix MP Mycorrhizae Organik. This is a great all-round potting mix and it’s organic! I’m using this for all my seed starting needs this year. It is also working great for soil blocking! Find this in cubes at Grow Generation.

2) Fishy Peat or Alaska Earth - made in Alaska! I’ve had success with both products. They are not organic but are made with wholesome natural ingredients. Both can be found at Alaska Mill and Feed.

3) Fox Farm Light Warrior or Ocean Forest- this company has a variety of potting mixes and seed starting mixes. They use natural products and they work great! Grow Generation and Alaska Mill and Feed carry these.

Note, that if you’re growing a lot of starts, buying a cube will be more cost effective than buying individual bags. Ask your local garden store if they offer these products in cubes!

Lights

To be honest, I tend to be opportunistic when it comes to lighting. I look for free stuff and cheap stuff. And what’s great is that they’ve all worked just fine. So here’s what I’ve used: LED shop lights from Costco, florescent shop lights as found in any hardware store, grow-specific LED lights. All these will do the job! I say buy whatever fits your budget best.

The most important steps when it comes to lighting is 1) to keep the lights just a few inches from the plant to prevent “leggyness” and 2) to give your plants 16 hours of light (an inexpensive outlet timer works great for making this happen).

Heat Mats and Thermostats

For the BEST germination, invest in a a seed starting heat mat AND thermostat made specifically for this. This will cost you around $70.00-$80.00 If you can’t afford this your first season, don’t sweat! But even soil heat at around 75-80 degrees will give you the best seedling germination (for most plants).

Soil temperatures are roughly 10 degrees cooler than ambient room temperature, so often your soil may be cooler than you think without a heat heat mat.

Shelves

I use simple metal wire shelving so I can stack my seedlings. But get creative here! You’ll just need a place to hang the lights and a place underneath to set your trays.

NOW you’re READY TO PLANT!

1) Fill your pots with damp soil.

2) Put 1-2 seeds on top. Your seed packet will give you a germination rate for each seed. If its less than 80% put 2 seeds in each pot.

3) Lightly cover with soil. Just barely cover as light aids the germination of most flower seeds. I like to cover just so there is a bit of soil contact on top of seed.

4) Cover with a plastic dome and place under lights and on heat mats.

5) Keep seeds damp but not overwatered. Once seeds germinate I vent the domes by making sure there’s a bit of airflow between the tray and the dome. You can also take the dome off if it’s getting too moist in there.

Happy planting out there!

Planning Your Dream Garden

I know it’s the middle of winter but believe it or not, it’s time to plan your dream garden!

To be honest, here on the farm this is a HUGE undertaking. Every year it gets a bit easier but I am always surprised by the time this takes.

As a home gardener your task is a little simpler but give yourself time and have fun!

I want to break down your garden planning job into a few smaller tasks. Next to each task I will have a description on how I do this and a link to an actual PDF sample of my planning tools.

1) Make a crop list. List all the crops you are going to grow!

How do you decide? I like to grow things I like to eat! Start there then browse through your seed catalogs and find a few other things you might like to try.

How do you choose varieties? Read about each variety carefully. For Alaska, shorter days to maturity is important especially with very long season crops (like tomatoes). Also try to read between the lines. What are the descriptions NOT saying. For example, I tried a short season cucumber advertised as a great variety for northern growing. Sure win right? Not quite. The flavor and texture was almost unpalatable. Our chickens feasted on those.

I make a simple spreadsheet with the following information on it: crop (i.e. broccoli), variety (Belstar), source (where I bought my seed), days to maturity or DTM (you’ll see this in the description online or on the back of the seed packet), weeks to maturity WTM (just divide your DTM by 7 - I like to do this cause it’s way easier to count back by weeks than for days to figure out when you need to plant), notes (YOU MUST TAKE NOTES THROUGHOUT THE SEASON ON EACH CROP).

CLICK HERE to see a sample of my planing spreadsheet! I have left on a few extra columns here in case you want to add these on yours too.

2) Draw your garden. Sit down and draw your garden!

I like using grid paper for this. Then each grid increment can be a 1 foot or 6 inch increment. OR you can just draw on plain paper and just mark off your actual garden dimensions.

Pencil in where you want each of your chosen crops to grow. Remember to think about taller plants (or plants that need to be trellised) - place these on the north side of your garden so they don’t shade smaller crops. Crops that stay in the ground the whole summer (like broccoli or potatoes) can be further away from your paths than crops you might harvest more often (like salad greens).

This helps you plan where things go and how much you can fit in your area. This also becomes a record (keep your dated drawings) so you can rotate where you grow each crop in subsequent years.

3) Make a planting calendar

CLICK HERE to see a sample of my planting calendar. I plan by week. Week 1 is the first week of the year - using week numbers (and not just dates) is helpful in order to use past planting calendars to plan for future planting dates since actual dates may fall into different weeks each year.

In order to make sure I’m seeding things when I need to I usually start by planning when I want to harvest each crop.

For example, if I need all my broccoli harvested by September 1st, I’ll count back its weeks to maturity (days to maturity/7). If broccoli has 66 days to maturity (or 9.5 weeks to maturity) I will make sure my plants are planted in the ground by the end of June. Note that since broccoli is usually started indoors, I need to add additional time for germination (maybe a week) and indoor growth (a few weeks). So I would start my seeds the first week of June.

Remember you don’t want ALL your beans or broccoli or whatever to be ready at once, so stagger your plantings. Each plant is different but Johnnys and High Mowing, two of my favorite seed saving companies, are usually good at suggesting how far to stagger your plantings in order to get a steady supply of crops all summer.

CLICK HERE to read my previous blog all about ordering seeds.

A note on days to maturity (DTM): DTM is a best guess the seed company can give based on when the plant goes in the ground. Crops usually direct seeded (salad mix, peas, beans, carrots, etc) have a DTM from date sown. Crops usually transplanted (cucumbers, tomatoes, etc.) have a DTM from the time you plant them in the ground. I know this is a bit confusing so remember to use DTM as a guide but not as a written-in-stone rule.

So there you go! Now you’re ready to get started planting.

My 5 Favorite Seed Companies

If you’re a gardener (seasoned or aspiring) I hope you will find my garden resources helpful! Every year I discover new ideas, techniques and sources. I hone and streamline my gardening processes and am here to share what I know.

What I love best of all though is that with gardening you never stop learning. There are endless varieties and variables that can lead to success or failure. And remember, failure is where you really learn! I’m failing all over the place :)

To start, here’s a breakdown of where I order my seeds.

I prefer to order all my seeds online. The variety is endless and it’s easy to source organic and heirloom or open pollinated varieties if that’s what you’re looking for.

1) Johnny’s Selected Seeds. Johnny’s is a comprehensive seed company out of Maine. They carry almost everything you would want to grow AND have tons of growing guides and resources. They carry organic, heirloom, open pollinated and conventional seeds.

I usually order the bulk of my seeds from Johnny’s as the quality and webpage functionality is outstanding.

They offer free shipping for orders over $200.00.

2) High Mowing. This is a company that sells exclusively organic seed out of Vermont. I love this company because I know everything is organic and extremely high quality. Most of my salad greens seeds come from High Mowing.

They offer free shipping on orders over $10.00! This is a screaming deal.

3) Bakers Creek Heirloom Seeds. A company out of the Ozarks that sells heirloom and old fashioned varieties. Their prices are VERY reasonable. Their print catalog is also SUPER fun to look through.

I usually only order some rare and unusual veggies or flowers that I can’t find anywhere else. Even though I don’t order much from them each year, what I have ordered has had great germination and good quality. And their packets of seeds usually have way more seeds than other seed companies.

4) Foundroot. These guys are an Alaskan company out of Haines. They have hand picked varieties that do great in Alaska and cater to home gardeners - which means their packet quantities won’t overwhelm you.

5) Fruition Seeds. Another great seed company based in New York. These guys are a small company with lots of passion and great seed starting resources. All their seeds are organic and open-pollinated.

So there it is! Page through some of these online catalogs or request a print catalog. Curl up in your cozy chair and dream about your spring garden.

Oh, and when do I do this?? I start putting together my seed orders in December. If I have any last minute purchases, I’ll do another order in February or March.

Don’t wait too long as specific seed varieties do sell out.

And, before you know it, it’ll be time to start your seeds!

Starting Seeds with Soil Blocks

New Methods

A few years ago I was inspired to change up my seed starting system to include soil blocking. I now use it exclusively.

If you’re not sure what soil blocking is, I’ll walk you through the whole process! Soil blocking requires taking a wet growing medium and using a little blocking press to create perfect stand alone squares in which to sow a seed or transplant.

I invested in a 3/4” blocker for germinating slow growers and tiny seeds and a 2” blocker for transplanting into or sowing larger or quick growing seeds. These are available from Johnny’s Seeds (my favorite online planting/growing store).

After lots of experimenting with growing medium (I’ve mixed my own, I’ve purchased all sorts of seed starting mix) I’ve settled on Pro-mix MP Mycorrhizae Organik. I purchase large bales at Southside Garden Supply each spring.

If you’re interested in trying to mix your own starting mix, here’s a recipe from Lisa Mason Ziegler. She’s author of Cool Flowers (a great book about maximizing your cool shoulder seasons for planting early in the spring or late in the fall - I’m still trying to perfect this method in a snowy climate, and honestly still sort of flailing):

Recipe

16 C sifted peat or coco fiber (I used our local Fishy Peat mix available at Mill and Feed) 

4 C of sifted compost (I used Susitna Organics humidified compost)

1/4 C greensand (available at Southside Garden Supply - let me put a plug in for this awesome local shop. Thanks to the marijuana industry, this place is loaded with great stuff for the urban farm or garden set-up)

1/4 rock phosphate (Mill and Feed or Southside Garden Supply)

6-7 C water

How To

Mix all ingredients well in a large tote or bin. One batch makes around 600 mini blocks.

If you’re using Pro-mix MP Mycorrhizae Organik or another pre-made mix, just mix a set amount of soil in a tub and add water until it’s a very wet mud.

Once your planting medium is all mixed grab your blocker, dip in a dish of water (aids in releasing blocks), firmly press your blocker down into soil medium a few times to really pack it in, scrape off excess, and while holding just above the bottom of your seeding tray depress the plunger until blocks release.

It takes a few tries to get the hang of it! Seeds can then be planted in the little depression left my the blocking pin.

Get creative about what you use for trays. I use regular seedling tray bottoms with no holes. I reuse these every year for 3-5 years! Folks also use lunch trays, plates, left over styrafoam trays, yogurt lids, etc.

Growing on

To water, less is more. Although you don’t want to desiccate your precious seedlings it’s easy to over water and get disastrous results (like damping off). Be sure to water from the bottom to preserve the delicate soil block structure. They wick up water like crazy. 

Once the 3/4” blocks are ready to transplant, plant directly outdoors or up-pot into a 2” or 4” block. I up-block into a 2” block for most of my starts.

The larger seed blockers come with a different blocking pin that creates a square indent that perfectly fits a 3/4” block.

Now go grow some epic plants!