How to Start Plants Indoors

Spring has sprung and that means gardening season is just around the corner. Gardening has quite a few benefits. To start with, you have a steady supply of fresh food all summer and a garden promotes healthy eating by having vegetables readily available. Vegetables make great additions to any meal or can be eaten plain for a yummy, healthy snack.  You also have more control over your food if you are growing it. You will know whether or not pesticides/herbicides have been used. Gardening can also save you quite a bit of money. For example:

• Tomatoes
• 1 LB at Store: $3.99/pound
• Plant (yields ~  20 pounds Tomatoes): ~$5 or $0.25/pound
• Seeds (Lots of plants that yield ~ 20-30 pounds Tomatoes): $3.95 for 125 seeds
• If you only grow 3 plants, that comes out to $0.07/pound and goes down with every plant grown.

**This used a conservative number for costs and # of tomatoes. You may be able to get cheaper seeds and often times plants will produce more than the pound amount specified (often doubled that specified).

As you can see, with most plants this will be a huge money saver. An added bonus is that you can potentially sell your produce at a garage sale or to friends and family to make some extra cash. Finally, gardening is a great way to be more active if you aren't a fan of working out. Between planting, weeding, and picking you will get plenty of fresh air and exercise. Gardening is a great activity to reduce stress and can be fun for the whole family. See Gardening with Children Reaps Many Benefits or What are the Physical and Mental Benefits of Gardening for more information.

How do you get started?

If you are buying plants at the store, all you have to do is wait until the last frost has passed, buy plants, and dig away. Don't forget to water and weed as needed.

For those of you who have the time and desire to save even more money, let's look at starting a garden with seeds. The first step is to buy seeds for the plants you wish to grow. Keep in mind if you have a short growing season, you will need to start the seeds indoors and transplant outside. You also will need to purchase biodegradable containers or use recycled container and potting soil. In the video above you can see that we use a combination or coconut fiber planters, recycled soda containers and solo cups. Milk jugs also make great planters.

Fill each container with potting soil. Following seed packet directions, plant seeds in each container. You will usually want to plant 2-3 seeds in each container and thin seedlings out a few days after they appear. Lightly pack the soil and water. Place planters in sunlight and keep warm (ideally above 70). Keep moist, but avoid overwatering if using impermeable containers. Soil should be moist, not soaking wet. From there you will need to thin seedlings once they emerge and transplant them outside when the time comes. See our YouTube video on transplanting vegetables.

When to start seeds will depend on your climate and what you are growing. For an easy way to plan out your plant dates visit You Grow Girl. They offer a downloadable spreadsheet that you can input your frost date and it calculates the rest for you.

For more on starting your gardens or square foot gardening, visit our Creating Your Green Garden While Keeping Green In Your Pocket post.