> Next: Growing Vegetables from Seeds
Smart Seed Selection
There are several things you need to know about vegetable seed for planting a vegetable garden:
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- When will seed be available in garden centers and stores?
- Why do seed packets have a packing and expiration date?
- Why should you choose seed over nursery starts and transplants?
- How do seeds germinate and grow?
- What are the basic steps needed to plant vegetable seeds?
Why Plant Seed?
The arrival of seeds at garden retail stores as late winter passes marks the starting point of another vegetable gardening season and sparks the imagination of gardeners everywhere.
These tiny packets contain promises and dreams. Most vegetables are annual plants. (A few others are perennials or biennial species, including asparagus and artichoke, while the remainder are bulbs or tubers such as chives, onions and potatoes.) The clear majority of vegetables live a single season, flower, produce their seeds and then die.
Garden seed is grown from these annual plants by commercial nurseries and is highly perishable; each packet contains an expiration date for its use and germination within the current season. The seed requires this because it is alive, though dormant. Stored too long or handled carelessly, seeds lose their precious moisture and ability to sprout.
Planting vegetables with seed is the most economical way to grow a garden, but many choose to buy nursery starts for transplant instead for convenience in the false belief that growing from seed is too difficult.
Actually, growing vegetables by planting seed is among the easiest of garden acts. It’s a few minutes spent preparing the seed bed, a few more sowing the seeds, raking soil over them, tamping the soil snugly around the planting area, and a sprinkle of water to finish the task.
Whether planted indoors while waiting for the frosts to end or outdoors in the warming soil, planting with seed indelibly marks the heart of a true gardener.
Growing Vegetables from Seed
Seeds are quite remarkable. Within their tiny shells or seed cases, each seed holds both the germ of a living plant and a surrounding mass of nutrient-rich material to sustain the seedling after germination and root formation.
They are also quite durable, able to withstand drying—sometimes for decades or centuries—and heat, even the digestive tracks of birds and animals.
Even so, best germination takes place with fresh seed, packaged for the current year’s growing season. Always look for the expiration date on seed packages.