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Early Spring Planning & Seeding

Tips

What to grow?

What do you like to eat?

Climate zones

Niagara to Toronto along Lake Ontario is

zone 6b.

When to sow seeds & transplant

Starting Seeds

Starting Seeds

Moisten your seed-starting mix a few hours before you plant your seeds. Once the mix has absorbed the water fill your containers without compacting the soil too much. Make sure your pots are clean and have holes in the bottom to drain well. Set them inside a waterproof tray filled with water so that the soil wicks up the water.

Soil mix: 2 parts screened compost to provide nutrients 2 parts Sphagnum peat moss 1 part perlite 1 part vermiculite 2 parts coir (coconut fiber)

Starting Seeds

Seed depth is generally three times as deep as the seeds’ smallest diameter. Read the packet. Label the seed trays with the plant variety. Include the date sown and germination period which can vary. Cover the tray loosely to create a humid environment. Prop lids open once the seeds have germinated to allow air circulation. Seeds should sprout just fine at a comfortable home temperature. A heating pad can be used for plants that like warmer soil to germinate. Set your seedlings as close to a light as possible so they don’t grow long, weak stems. Fluorescent lights are only one-tenth as bright as sunlight, so seedlings will actually grow better if you leave the lights on continuously.

Caring for Seedlings

Shortly after the second set of true leaves appears, take a deep breath and thin your seedlings to one per pot. Use small scissors to clip off the weaker plants at the soil line, leaving only the stockiest plant.

Carefully “pot up” the survivors into larger, 3-or 4-inch pots. Squeeze the sides of the smaller containers all around, turn them upside down, and the plants should come out easily—soil and all. Immediately set them into the larger containers and fill with a mixture of 3 parts potting soil and 1 part screened compost. Tomato plants should have soil raised up the stem so only the very top leaves show. Roots will grow from the stem.

Caring for Seedlings

Hardening Off: About a week or two before you plan to transplant your seedlings to the garden, begin taking them outdoors to a protected place, such as inside a coldframe, under a glass patio table, or near a wall Increase the length of time on mild days. Start with just a couple of hours each day, work up to a full day, and then leave them out overnight.

If your growing medium contains only vermiculite and peat (as many seed-starting mixes do), you’ll also need to feed the seedlings with a fish emulsion solution. Start with one-quarter to one-half the recommended strength and add it to the seedlings’ water every other week. As the plants grow bigger, gradually increase the strength of the mixture.

Spacing

Check the seed packet for the plant spacing (ignore the row spacing). If the spacing is: • < 3” apart plant 16 per square • 4” apart plant 9 per square foot • 6” apart plant 4 per square foot • 12” apart plant 1 per square foot

Protection

Photo Credits: All New Square Foot Gardening, Mel Bartholomew

Companion Planting

Grow Vertically

Succession Planting

Crops for Succession Sowing

• Crops that are ready in 1-3 months: radishes, leaf lettuce, mustard Greens, toy bok choi, baby turnips, baby kale, arugula, spinach.

• Crops that need prompt, multiple harvesting: bush peas, bush beans, baby greens

• Cool season crops: Sow over a few weeks in the spring and then again late summer for fall harvests. Sow multiple times to increase the chance they will keep growing through heat waves to avoid flower production (bolting).

• Avoid most fruiting crops with the exception of zucchini/summer squash and cucumbers since these can be harvested within 55-65 days.

• Most peppers, tomatoes, winter squash won’t have as much time to offer multiple harvests. Instead choose early season, mid-season and late season tomatoes with a single transplanting time of early summer to spread that harvest instead of succession sowing.

• Crops that take 100 days to grow like parsnips, rutabagas, corn or pumpkins won’t work as well for succession sowing, but you can interplant them.

• Succession sowing crops are better directly sown, not transplanted. You could transplant broccoli 3 times in a season, but usually it’s easier with direct sowing.

Succession Sowing Plant Guideline

• Green beans - every 10 days • Beets every - 14 days • Cucumbers - every 3 weeks • Kale/Collards - every 3 weeks • Lettuce, - full size every 10-14 days • Lettuce, - salad mix every 7-10 days and harvest

re-growth * • Melons - every 3 weeks and multiple varieties • Radish - every 7 days • Spinach every 7 days and harvest re-growth * • Summer Squash - every 6 weeks • Sweet Corn - every 10 days and multiple varieties • Carrots - early May for summer and early July for

fall harvest • Cabbage / Cauliflower / Broccoli transplanted

early May for summer and trans-planted again early July for fall harvest.

* seed will not germinate reliably above 80F soil temperature,

limiting mid-summer plantings

Resources

http://thefoodproject.org/sites/default/files/

GrowingGuide2010.pdf

http://www.mysquarefootgarden.net/plant-

spacing/