Come January and February the internet and especially social media is full of happy gardeners showing off the seeds they are sowing, tomatoes, peppers, chillies, aubergine, and much, much more. For some gardeners, this causes unwanted stress as they battle to try to “keep up”.
I know my videos have made some newer gardeners anxious so I thought it was time to address this and talk about why some people might be sowing in January and more importantly let’s talk about all those little things that you might want to know BEFORE you decide to sow your seeds now based on my experiences.
▶LINKS TO THAT THING! ◀
My greenhouse and garden gadgets: http://eliandkate.com/our-gear
▶VIDEOS FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO SOW EARLY◀
▶VIDEOS FOR THOSE WHO CHOOSE TO WAIT A WHILE◀
▶ CHANNEL BRANDED SWAG ◀
Get your Eli & Kate t-shirts: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsielepPOAsZ7qdIlIbkO8g/store
▶ELI AND KATE ON THE WEB◀
As well as on youtube, you can find us here
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/EliandKate
Our website: http://www.eliandkate.com
#gardening #vegetablegarden #GrowYourOwn #gardeningtips
#sowingseeds
41 Comments
I love your information and advice. We decide if and how early to sow seeds. Some videos appeal to people with more competitive nature and risk. I am middle of the road. I was pleasantly surprised last year when my "late" indoor plum tomato plants exceeded my nursery bought plants. And all germinated. By the time my area is safe for tomato plants, there are none of the varities we want. Loved the tomato plant " hokey pokey" term. I put far fewer plants in basement garage overnight last year when I grew my own middle term seeds.
Am a recent fan viewer. No guilt, shame, or pressure to start in January. Although I am itching for greenery this time if year. Am overwintering my 2 pots of parsley in a warm, sunny bedroom. They are happy and healthy. Just keep pruning for kitchen use.
Great video and I'm with you – sort of – going to grow one of each of the tomatoes early just to see what the difference is. Last year I did my tomatoes early BUT… they were on 'sunny' windowsill on heat mat for germination. However, as they grew and I potted them on off the mat, the cold of the glass in the window at night caused a real problem! Stunted growth, purple leaves, it took ages for them to get going again and they fruited late!! It took a while for me to work out what had happened.
Hi Eli,
you always have the option of growing a few Anmore dewdrop as earlies which you got from Camilla country living.
At a foot high these would be easy to bring in.
I'm similar timings with you on the tomatoes but also going to try a few bush tomatoes as earlies so always easy to bring in if necessary.
I'm so tempted to get started early but I'm trying my best to wait. Living in north east england we are forecast -4°c next week!
Well done! I only start peppers and tomatoes inside about a month or so before I want to transplant them. This time of year, I do get really desperate to have my hands in the dirt, as it were ( I blame it on all the wonderful seed companies sending me emails and catalogs that I adore), so what I have started doing is growing some varied salad greens and herbs in pots inside. I get the joy of seeing the seedlings come up and harvest right there from my lighted planting shelves. It takes care of my urge to grow things from seeds, and I get yummy salads and garnishes.
😂😂😂Hahaha Eli! I hooted at the opening of this video! And when I recounted it to my husband, he hooted too!
As for the frost dates, I always chuckle, because here in the foothills of Alberta Canada, the last frost is listed as June 30, and the first frost is listed as July 1 !!!😂
Thanks for a very informative video, I won't be starting to early. Thanks for sharing.
I had a pants year in poly last year, I think I was more concentrating on flowers on my 2nd plot. I've given that one up now after a year, I cant do 2 plots, I work full time, the second plot was really stressing me out. I've sown onions, chilli's and peppers, I can provide heat and light. I'm following Jessie at plot 37 and trying the Socrates, they will stay at home rather than the allotment, sown Luffa and cucamelon, hoping to get a head start! Tomatoes I will hold off until March me thinks, and I need to narrow down what I'm growing! a couple of years ago I think I ended up with at least 12 different varieties, nuts woman, just nuts lol
I never started early I do most in March as I have no room to keep plants in the house and also the last frost date is near end May as I add 2 weeks on just in case. I still got a good harvest of toms in summer and a few peppers.
😂
I just finished my first round of seeds for the ones that take up ti 10 weeks. But we can plant as early as March here in the deep south usa. Ill wait 2 weeks before i start my next round like my Tomatoes and stuff. Then 2 weeks later my melons and squash. But i also start all my pkants in 3 inch pots so i dont have to uppot
Sowing seeds early is an age old question. I have a seed sowing setup in an extra room in my basement. I made the mistake of starting peppers and tomatoes way to early the first two years of having it. The plants grew to big and became a problem when watering and taking up space. Because they grew big they were in about double the trays. Carrying trays up and down the stairs to harden them off got old real quick. That being said some things will be started at the end of the month. Onions and herbs take forever to get big and I will start them. I will also start cold crops early because they go out first.
Really enjoyed this balanced approach to sowing. I find your videos really wachable and a good balance between informative and fun. I must admit I normally wait until March to begin. This year, I am experimenting sowing half of my chilli, pepper and aubergine seeds now with heat and half at the start of March, hoping I will have a longer bumper harvest.
I’m so tempted to sow some now and again later as a comparison …. X
Great presentation style. Love it!
I started early last year with heat mats, this year I am starting later with no heat mat or lights or plant Hokey Cokey! I will sow radish and greens now that’s it. I may also buy chilli plugs instead.
Frost dates, be conservative
Last year my last frost day was middle of March, and I was weary as I remembered my garden being quite cold in April. And I was right, we had MINUS 6 in the third week of April inside my greenhouse. God knows how they calculate those averages – perhaps the temperature in Piccadilly Circus, but not my garden.
Thank you for documenting the experiment! I thought plants had a set schedule. I hear so many start way too soon. I aim for root vegetables to be harvested later when it’s cooler—hopefully. I have also heard the warm season crops catch up quickly. I just purchased a soil thermometer 🌡 🎉. Not planting out until soil is warm enough. It just sets the plants back setting out too early and surprised that it can actually make celery prone to bolting.
This also tells me to hold off on winter sow jugs as we are hitting highs of mid 40s!!! Tomorrow warmer yet with rain!!😮. Normal January is highs around or below freezing. Our AG news caster said we will pay for this as it doesn’t kill off bugs, etc. I just read today online the problems with pathogens attacking lettuce, etc in California including flooding problems. It’s such a problem that some fast food are leaving out the lettuce in sandwiches. A box of lettuce they say can go for up to $70!
California supplies about 75% of produce for nation (US).
I’m excited about the tomato info as that means I could winter sow them and still produce a good crop.
Seed starting shelves are already crowded with indoor lettuce and micro greens. Our local convenience store owner said it was a bidding war to buy eggs—😂😂we are getting chickens again 😂😂
Great info—thanks!
Note on frost dates— those dates are average not set in stone. And yes, extra time because of the week or so to harden the seedlings off. It’s a crap shoot as I remember getting a frost every month in late 90s here in WIsconsin, US.
OMG. I just recently found your channel and I love it. Eli, I feel like we could be best friends. I have only watched the first 2 minutes of this video and I am rolling on the floor. I love Kate. In the videos I have seen, she doesn’t say much but what she says is hilarious. She seems like she keeps you on your toes. Thanks so much to both of you for the good information and fun content
Try taking cuttings of your tomatoes to keep them going. This could also help with them getting too big as you can just keep the smaller cutting.
Love your videos!!!! You are so funny & educational!!! I love seeing Kate!!!
~ Hamlet, reference… clever!!!~
Thank you for sharing your experience with us! I always start my warm weather plants in mid march for zone 6b in the US, but I start my onions in January inside under lights because they have such a loooong growing season.
I started bunching onions in the house last week and they started popping up today. This week I hope to start some brassicas on heat mats in the house because by the time they are larger they will be ready for the greenhouse and can handle cooler temperatures
I appreciated the performance and the critique (long time would be actor)… also given where you are… are some people going to be confused about "the Scottish play" 😉
On a more serious note… I'm still learning how to best use my greenhouse/getting seeds started early etc. It's all fun either way and I'm learning (slowly).
I am so incredibly excited for our garden this year. I moved into my grandmother’s house this year and the renter we had in it basically let the entire yard go. We spent all last year just getting things cleaned up. I finally have a garden area planned and we get to build it up. I want to start seeds so badly but it’s always a good idea to wait until Mother’s Day here in Denver, Colorado. And still, we prepare to protect for a frost.
I have started my peppers and my aubergines, they live on my windowsill until I start my tomatoes in March and then they will move into the greenhouse. It gets challenging from March because I've got tomatoes, squashes and melons on the go and they can't go outside until June.
LOL that opening was great. It’s too late for me I’ve already started inside (much to my husband’s dismay!) Lisianthus seeds, several flowering perennials, Red Baron onions and about four different kinds of sweet and hot peppers haha
Great video!
Good to see Kate keeping you in check Eli 😋
I think we can all get a bit carried away with seeds at this time of year and this is some great advice on what to do and when!
I think you did a great job talking about the relative merits of each approach. I have been drawn into sowing some onion seeds early, but I still have plenty of seeds to sow later and its going to be a bit of an experiment for me. I think i like to sow a little early for tomatoes and peppers but not so early, so maybe some time in February. I'm prepared to do a little "hokey-kokey" but I don't have any lights or sunny windowsill to work with. I'm not sure I have ever seen the natural end of a tomato or pepper harvest before the frost comes so that part is news to me. One thing I wonder about is the idea of growing momentum. The idea that plants do best if they can keep growing in good conditions from seed to harvest. Inevitably plants that are sown early end up growing in less than ideal conditions, and that momentum can be lost, so I wonder if that is an actual phenomenon or something I have just invented.
January is a great time to start a worm bin if anybody is desperate to get their hands in the soil! By spring you'll have some lovely worm castings to supercharge your young plants.
I like to start some things off early just to make March feel a bit less intense because that's when most of my seeds are sown! I've got onion seeds indoors in my office where it's nice and warm, and some lettuce too. Thanks for a great video, glad to have discovered your channel
Thanks for this video. I'm in my 3rd year of gardening so quite new and have felt like I should be sowing my seeds indoors NOW. So I've sown my tomatoes and aubergines and now realize I'll have nowhere to keep them 😐 this was so informative and think I will now wait until March and sow along with you 😊👍
Thank you for your fun and informative videos.I am doing some ‘Winter Sowing’ this year in clear containers as I do not possess a greenhouse nor do I have the space for indoor seed starting.
I live in Sweden where we have very cold winters with frozen ground even in the greenhouses. I always start seeds too early but this year I have created a schedule for which seeds take the longest to grow to a size to set our and which seeds take just 6-weeks, also those that will be tall like tomatoes or rather small in comparison and I can keep them inside the grow room a bit longer. Our last frost date is sometime in late May but the weather has been very weird the last few years getting warmer and then a snow fall coming in late May. I have a large grow room in the cellar which allows me to start almost whatever I want. I also over winter some of my flowers and my fig tree there. Thanks for a great video, it helps me to stay with my list instead of starting a bunch of things to early but still enjoying watching the growing of beautiful food. P.S. I started kale, salad, basil and spinach for winter eating, and they do great!
Most excellent content as always! As a new gardener over the past 3yrs I've learned how much our frost dates have changed year to year. Here is where a garden journal is so handy. I also wished I had thought to contact local garden clubs to ask. You would have laughed so hard at my first early spring gardening in Zone5 🇨🇦 in a tiny plastic amazon greenhouse strapped down to our back deck with ratchet straps from the wind storms. Moving blankets wrapped around it at night with a Crock-Pot full over water inside and a space heater 😳😳😳 😂🤣😂 It totally sucked the joy out of growing. Have not started early since. ☺️
Great advice and relevant to me. New greenhouse was erected in November and I have been champing at the bit. I will be holding off for a few weeks before I plant my tomato and cucumber seeds. Potting shed arrives this week (subject to snow conditions). I will be patient. Looking forward to next broadcast. Super show.
Hi Eli, I'm not sowing anything yet. My small greenhouse is full of cuttings from summer, so no room! We woke up to snow this morning here, so its definitely too cold. I have sorted everything and cant wait to get going…..but not yet 🤣
Yeah I don’t start anything until late March early April … we have a cat that likes eating seedlings so it’s safer to start them outside in the polytunnel a bit later in xox
Alas poor Yorick, I knew him well Horatio
Only sweet peas so far and oh yeah onion seeds 👍👍. Have a fantastic week ladies 🥰🇨🇦
I think you need a polytunnel!
Sometimes I get cynical and think that the idea if sowing seeds so early is promoted by the seed companies. But I also realise that gardeners just love to sow seeds 😍. Me too! However, my experience is that it is also important to provide the right conditions for the seedling to grow. And this can often make up of sowing later. Last year I had celeriac, chili and tomatoes way too big for their own good when it was time to plant out. I blame the fermented nettle juice as taught by Huw Richards. It is like rocket fuel for plants! This year I am starting later.