Cailin Riley Books

The benefit of starting seeds indoors is that you get an early start on your veggies, which means that when you eventually transplant them outdoors, you’re much closer to getting an early harvest. 

If you start seeds indoors, you’ll want a system that includes shelving, a light source such as a combo heat/UV lamp, and seed trays. You can use small pots or seed cell trays to start or you can buy environmentally friendly and compostable paper cells. I find that they drain well and are easiest to use when transplanting. Plus, they’re very cheap.

When you plant your seeds, you’ll want to use potting soil that is formulated for seed starting. You’ll also want to pay special attention to the planting instructions on the back of each seed packet; this includes planting space and depth. I recommend planting only one or two seeds per cell as this will ensure that each seed has the best chance of germinating and growing. Be sure to plant at least a few seeds of each variety. For example, if you want to eventually have three cucumber plants in your garden, seed at least four to five in case a few don’t germinate or survive to maturity.

Keep all of your seeds moist by watering them daily. I usually keep a spray bottle near my shelves and spritz new seedlings at least two times a day. I turn on the lamps first thing in the morning and turn them off nightly before bed.

Once your seedlings start to pop up, it’s very exciting! Continue to water them and nurture them along until they grow their first set of true leaves. The leaves that you see when a seedling first comes up are their seed leaves or cotyledons. The next set of leaves the seedling grows are known as their true leaves. That’s when you can do things like thinning.

Thinning is the process of removing extra seedlings that occupy the same space or cell. Let’s assume that in a single cell, you end up with two melon seedlings. Both of them are competing for the same resources to survive and that can make both of them weak. In order to get the strongest plant possible, you’ll want to remove one of the seedlings. I usually trim out the weaker looking seedlings and compost them. It’s not worth trying to replant a thinned seedling as they usually won’t grow well after being transplanted so early.

Once you have a healthy, taller seedling, you can start thinking about transplanting into your garden. You’ll only want to risk this once you have a healthy plant with at least a few pairs of true leaves and the outdoor conditions meet what the plant needs.

I want to start seeds indoors, but I don’t have any fancy set-up. Is there a way to still do it?

Yes! All you really need to start seeds indoors is water, a light source, soil and some way of keeping seeds warm. A cheap and easy set-up might look like seeds under a damp paper towel or in a tray with soil under a plastic dome or plastic wrap by a sunny window.