Eco-Kid: Starting Plants as Seeds

A major step you can take towards green eating is growing your own vegetables. It's easy, cheap, local, and nothing compares to grabbing a pepper off the plant and eating it right away for dinner. Freshness really does make a difference!

Seed Trough Just Before Planting Outside

This year, we don't have our own land or garden spot to rent, so I'm experimenting with container gardening. The project started off in North Dakota with a few seeds in a North-facing window. Now, what I know about growing plants from seeds can definitely fit into a single paragraph, but I've learned a lot from my first-year experiment and am having some success:

Check the seed packet, which tells you how long it takes before the seeds should be planted in the ground.
Figure out your region's "frost dates" which, in the spring is typically the latest you might expect frost. You'll use this date to plan when you'll plant outside.
Using the information from 1 & 2 count backwards for each type of plant you want to grow and create a seed schedule for when you should be planting each seed indoors. For example, Larned, KS has a frost date of May 11th, so I picked the Saturday immediately afterwards to plant, May 15th. My squash packet indicates that I should plant the seeds indoors three weeks before the last frost, so I planted those on April 24th.
Your seedlings need lots of light. The North-facing window in our apartment in North Dakota did not provide enough, so next time I'll choose a South-facing window, or possibly supplement with growth lights.
I bought a little seed trough and some organic soil in which to grow the seeds, but you could use just about any small container (dig through your recycling or use the bottom of a milk carton) to get your seeds started.
Make sure you keep them watered!

My Seed Schedule

That's honestly about all I did. There are far more thorough step-by-step instructions online like these. I should have planted more than one seed per container as some seeds never germinated. I did this for my strawberries, then just thinned them out later.

The Results

So far so good! I've harvested one zucchini and a handful of green beans so far and have plenty of tomatoes and other zucchini on the way. The strawberries have all died off, unfortunately, but the rest of my plants are doing well. I know it's a little late in the season to be harvesting zucchini, but I blame the low light in North Dakota for that.