April marks the exciting transition when your vegetable garden truly comes to life. As soil temperatures rise and the threat of frost begins to fade in many regions, this month offers the perfect opportunity to get your hands dirty and lay the foundation for a great harvest.
With longer days and warming temperatures, April is prime time for both direct sowing and transplanting a wide variety of vegetables. Whether you’re a seasoned gardener or trying your hand at growing food for the first time, this month’s activities will set the stage for months of fresh, homegrown produce.
Let’s explore what vegetables you can sow and plant in April in your garden and how to give them the best start for a successful growing season.
Sow winter leek indoors now. I either sow 2 – 3 seeds per small pot, or I take a larger container and sow them in rows that I will be thinning later.
Brassicas
Although we can plant the first batch of brassicas like broccoli, kohlrabi, cauliflower, white and red cabbage outdoors now, we should still sow a second batch indoors. That way, we can transplant them outdoors several weeks from now and have a continuous harvest of brassicas instead of one overwhelming flood of harvest.
Seeing that those second batches will be outside in summer, we may have to choose late instead of early varieties.
Lettuce
Like with cabbage, the second round of lettuce-starting has begun! Now, however, we want to choose varieties that like warmer weather, like, for example, iceberg and oak leaf lettuce.
Tomatoes
If you haven’t seed-started tomatoes for outdoor planting already, mid-April is the latest time to do so. Sow several seeds per pot and thin them later.
Cucurbitaceae
The family of Cucurbitaceae consists of cucumbers, zucchini, melons and pumpkins, and they can all be seed-started indoors in April. None of them, however, takes thinning very well and
Vegetables we can sow outdoors in April
Broad beans
The beginning of April is the latest time to sow broad beans. They are very tolerant of low temperatures and can even withstand light frosts, which is why they don’t need protection against the cold.
Peas / Sugar peas
There are early varieties that can be sown outdoors mid to end of March. Just remember that peas are climbers and therefore install a trellis or net between the rows.
Carrots
Again, we’re talking early varieties here. If you planted onion bulbs in autumn, sow the carrots in the rows between the onions. That way, carrots and onions will protect one another from harmful pests.
Radishes
Carrots need quite some time to germinate, and it’s difficult, therefore, to weed the rows. A trick to still see where the carrots have been sown is to mix radish seeds between the carrot seeds. Radishes need only a few days to germinate and then not only show us the row but are a yummy vegetable for salads or as a ferment.
Lettuce
Contrary to the varieties we start indoors now, lettuce we sow outdoors in April has to be very tolerant against cold temperatures, like Asia lettuce. If we mix the early varieties we sow now and the later varieties we seed-start indoors, we can continually harvest different kinds of leafy greens. This method of sowing vegetables every 3 – 4 weeks is called succession planting which not only ensures a continuous harvest but also that the soil in our patches is always covered.
All lettuce varieties germinate in light only. Do not cover them with soil!
Rocket salad
is an easy one! Sow it, harvest he leaves, and when you let it bloom, it will spread itself.
Spinach
Spinach is almost a no-brainer: sow it, cover it with winter protection fleece and just let it grow. It’s usually quite tolerant of the cold and will grow well under protective cover.
Beetroot
Although you can seed-start beetroot indoors, that’s only advisable when you have a small garden or want to grow just some of them. In our family, we need plenty of beetroot for salads, pickles, fermented or cooked, and that’s why I sow them directly in April.
Salsify
Salsifies need a deep, loose soil to grow long, straight roots. A patch where potatoes grew the year before would therefore be ideal.
Planting outdoors
Before we plant anything outdoors, it’s important to harden the seedlings off by gradually exposing them to outdoor temperatures. Start by putting your plants outside or in the greenhouse for 2 – 3 hours at first and prolong that time over a week before transplanting.
Lettuce
The lettuce that we started in February or March is now ready for transplanting outside. Make sure that the seedlings are not planted too deeply, or they may rot. As a rule of thumb, put them into the soil as deep as they were in the pot.
Brassicas
All early brassica seedlings like kohlrabi, early Savoy cabbage and cauliflower as well as white and red cabbage, can be planted outdoors in April. Leave plenty of space between the seedlings so that you can plant celery in between later. Cabbage and celery are great companions in the patch and repel each other’s pests.
Leek
Plant leeks between the cabbage rows. That way, you not only make the best use of space here, seeing that cabbage grows on the ground and leek on the “first floor”, but they also deter pests from one another. For best protection, however, cover them with a pest protection net.
Like garlic, onions and shallots can be planted now. Either plant small bulbs you can buy at the nursery or the seedlings you’ve started indoors earlier that year.
Potatoes
In my hardiness zone 7b, I don’t plant potatoes before the end of April. Considering that our last night frosts can happen until mid-May, the end of April is perfect for putting the pre-sprouted potatoes in the ground. When the shoots start looking out of the soil, the worst weather will be over.
The gardening season has officially started! Time to dig in the dirt!
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In an ideal world, we would just take the time once to make a planting plan for your vegetable garden and then stick to it for all the years to come. That would be so conventient, wouldn’t it? Alas, it doesn’t work that way. Cultivating the same plants in the same place again and again would leach out the soil over the years and bring little to no harvest. The solution to this problem is to implement a rotational system where crops are planted on a different field every year until they reach that first field again. This concept is what we know as crop rotation.
But crop rotation isn’t just an old farming technique: In a vegetable garden where we intensively cultivate a small(ish) amount of soil for maximum harvest, we also use crop rotation to keep the soil fertile and our plants healthy. In this post, I’ll show you what crop rotation is, how it will help you to get healthier plants, fewer pests and more abundant harvests and how you can integrate it into your garden plan. Let’s dive into everything you need to know about this game-changing practice!
What is crop rotation and what are its benefits?
Crop rotation is the concept of NOT cultivating the same plants in the same place year after year. That way, we avoid pests and diseases from getting the upper hand. There are many pests and diseases that specialize in one plant or plant family (see below). By rotating our crops, we keep them at bay and diminish the risk of them getting ground and permanently invading our garden.
Another benefit of crop rotation is the soil’s nutrient content and thus its fertility. As you know, we can categorize vegetables as heavy, medium and light feeders, that is, plants with high, medium or low nutrient demands. Cultivating cabbage, for example, which is a heavy feeder, for years in a row would leach out the soil fast of the many nutrients cabbage needs to grow healthily.
However, nutrient supply by crop rotation is not as important for vegetable gardening as the disruption of pest and disease cycles. After all, we do add compost and fertilisers to supply nutrients. For the same reason, a fallow where we grow nothing but a cover crop on a bed will not be necessary in vegetable gardening.
Together with companion planting (mixed culture), the use of eco-friendly fertilisers and plant protection, crop rotation is an important pillar for the long-term sustainability of our gardens.
How to use crop rotation in your vegetable garden
First of all, we need to understand the different groups of vegetables. The best way to do so is to either categorize our vegetables by the “family” they belong to or by what we want to harvest from them.
Understanding Plant Families
Plants, like humans, belong to different families. It’s important to know which plants are members of the same family as they usually show not only similar nutrient needs but also attract the same pests and diseases.
Here’s a short overview of the most common plant families and their requirements:
Family: Poaceae (sweet grass) Vegetables: Corn Nutrient uptake: medium
Understanding plant categories
Apart from plant families, we can also sort our vegetables depending on what we want to harvest from them.
There are five categories:
Category: Leafy vegetables Vegetables: Lettuce, spinach and Swiss chard Nutrient uptake: medium to high
Category: Brassicas Vegetables: Cabbage, Brussels sprouts, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, Savoy cabbage and kohlrabi. Nutrient uptake: high
Category: Fruiting vegetables Vegetables: Tomatoes, zucchini, pumpkins, peppers, eggplants, cucumbers, melons and potatoes Nutrient uptake: high (especially potassium and phosphorus)
Category: Root vegetables Vegetables: Carrots, turnips, parsnips, beetroots, radishes, parsley, onions and garlic Nutrient uptake: medium
Category: Legumes Vegetables: Beans, peas, lentils, chick peas, soy beans and peanuts Nutrient uptake: low; fix nitrogen into the soil
Crop rotation in practice
With two possibilities of dividing vegetables into groups, we also have two options for planning our crop rotation. But first of all, we need to
Make a garden plan
Before the planting comes a plan. Make a list of all the vegetables you like and want to cultivate. If you’re a fledgling in vegetable gardening, start small and only take a few crops. Then, draw a map of your garden beds, raised beds or containers and divide them into sections for each crop group.
At the beginning of your garden journey, I’d recommend sorting the vegetables by category (leafy veggies + brassicas, fruit bearers, root vegetables and legumes). Divide your vegetable garden into quarters and cultivate one category per quarter.
If you choose to group your vegetables by family, think about how many plants per variety you’ll need and plan the size of the zones accordingly.
Crop Rotation by Category
Legumes have the extraordinary ability to gather nitrogen from the air and fix it in their roots. For that reason, we only cut legumes after harvesting and leave their roots in the soil to enrich it with nitrogen.
Plant leafy vegetables and brassicas after legumes as they need the nitrogen the legumes have fixed.
Fruiting vegetables follow leafy veggies and brassicas. Fruiting vegetables don’t need as much nitrogen as leafy veggies and brassicas, but rather potassium and phosphorus. Too much nitrogen can even prevent them from producing many fruits. The leafies and brassicas will have consumed enough nitrogen in the season before so there’ll be no problem on that front.
Plant root vegetables after fruiting vegetables. Root vegetables need even less nitrogen than fruiters. At the same time, they’ll break up the soil which legumes, that you should plant afterwards, love.
Rotating by plant category can be easily implemented. Divide your gardening space into quarters and plant a different category in each quarter. The next year, just rotate by one bed. That way, fruiters are followed by root vegetables. After that we plant legumes and in the fourth year leafy vegetables and brassicas and brassicas.
Crop Rotation by Plant Family
If you want to rotate your vegetables by plant family, you must first look at their nutrient needs. Basically, you plant medium feeders after heavy feeders and then cultivate nitrogen fixers to replenish the soil. This could look as follows:
Brassicaceae (cabbage family) need lots of nitrogen, so they are best planted after legumes, which are nitrogen-fixers.
Root vegetables break up the soil, which makes it great for potatoes and tomatoes that need to grow deep.
Legumes like peas and beans love the loose soil that, for example, potatoes leave behind.
Members of the umbelliferae family, like carrots and parsnips, are light to medium feeders and can follow vegetables of any other group.
Rotating by plant family can be a bit trickier at first, but it also gives you more alternatives to mix your vegetables, especially when it comes to succession planting and follow-up crops.
Nightshades and Umbellifers (tomatoes, pepper, eggplant etc. and carrots, celery, parsley etc.) – Poaceae (corn) and Asteraceae (lettuce, salsify) – Brassicaceae (cabbages, radish) and Liliaceae (onions, chives, garlic) – Cucurbitaceae (cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, zucchini) and Legumes (peas, beans)
Crop rotation and succession planting
Most vegetables don’t occupy the garden for the whole season, so we plant fast-growing crops before or after them. This is called succession planting and we also need to observe the rules of crop rotation here. It’s not good to plant late cauliflower after early broccoli, for example, because, as you know by now, they are from the same family and category and thus have the same nutrient requirements and attract the same pests and diseases. You’ll find more details on succession planting over here.
A cleverly planned succession of vegetables will leave your soil healthy and nutrient-rich, while your plants will benefit from one another and produce a great harvest.
Here are some examples of succession planting that take crop rotation into account:
Plant late cabbage varieties, lettuce or onions after potatoes
Cultivate radishes, lamb’s lettuce, spinach or kohlrabi after broad beans
When you’ve harvested garlic, plant strawberries on that bed or sow broad beans; the year after that the bed is ready for heavy feeders like cabbages or Cucurbitaceae.
After onions, you can sow endives, radicchio, beetroot, or Swiss chard.
Plant bush beans, spring onions, Swiss chard, spinach or late cabbage varieties after fennel.
How to rotate crops in small gardens
You may only have a small space for vegetable gardening and that’s okay. In fact, most home gardens are not very large and that may make it difficult to rotate and effectively space apart different veggies. Nevertheless, you should still try to do it as best as possible to keep pests and diseases at bay and help maintain soil fertility.
Here are a few tips on how to rotate crops in small gardens:
Raised beds
If you have only a small space for gardening, building three to four raised beds may be a good idea. That way, you can rotate your crops according to one of the plans above while having a solid barrier between each area, although they may be close to one another.
Container gardening
Using containers is similar to raised beds and I especially recommend it for vegetables that are prone to diseases like tomatoes. Like with raised beds, there is a physical barrier between the containers and the rest of your vegetable garden and the risk of spreading diseases across beds is minimal.
Scattered beds
Who says that all vegetables must be grown in one place? Admittedly, when it comes to watering or harvesting, it’s easier to have all vegetables in the same location, but you can also create “pockets” and grow veggies on beds scattered around your garden. That way, it’s easy to rotate crops and make sure that diseases do not spread.
Advanced Crop Rotation Strategies
Integrating cover crops into your rotation schedule
Cover crops are great for replenishing nutrients while at the same time covering the soil. Cultivating cover crops counts as fallow in the vegetable garden, whether it’s during the whole season or just a part of it. However, cover crops also belong to plant families and can be “siblings” of our veggies. It’s important to know, therefore, who is related to whom to avoid leaching the soil and spreading pests and diseases.
Here is an overview of common cover crops and their family membership:
Family: Legumes Members: Cowpea, red clover, white clover, crimson clover, sun hemp
Family: Brassicaceae Members: Rapeseed, yellow mustard, oilseed radish, field turnip
Make sure to consider these family memberships when planning your crop rotation. For example, don’t grow any cabbages in a bed where brassica cover crops like rapeseed or mustard were grown before. Also, cultivating corn after, for example, winter barley or oats may be difficult.
Companion planting and crop rotation
Companion planting means planting those vegetables together (that is alternating or in close proximity to each other) that help each other grow better. For example, corn and beans are amazing plant buddies: corn provides a natural support for bean vines to climb, while beans add nitrogen to the soil, which helps corn grow stronger. Another great pair is tomatoes and basil – basil helps keep pesky insects away from tomato plants, acting like a natural bodyguard. If you want to learn more about companion planting, you’ll find a comprehensive guide here.
When we use companion planting within our crop rotation system, we’re basically creating a superhero team of plants. Each plant brings its own special power to the garden. Some plants, like marigolds, can chase away harmful insects, while others, like clover, can improve soil health by adding nutrients. This method is not just smart gardening – it’s a way of working with nature instead of fighting against it, helping to grow healthier crops and take better care of the earth.
Companion Planting in Crop Rotation: Four Strategic Examples
Nitrogen-Fixing Legume Rotation with Heavy Feeders
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Plant bush beans or peas (nitrogen-fixing legumes)
Year 2: Follow with heavy-feeding corn or brassicas
Companion Planting Strategy:
Interplant beans with carrots and radishes
Plant pumpkins with corn to cover the soil
Benefits: Beans naturally enrich soil with nitrogen, supporting next year’s nutrient-hungry crops
Brassica and Allium Rotation with Root Crops
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Grow cabbage family crops (broccoli, kale etc.)
Year 2: Plant root crops like carrots and parsnips
Companion Planting Strategy:
Interplant onions and garlic with carrots to deter carrot flies
Use calendula as a trap crop to attract beneficial insects
Benefits: Breaks pest cycles, improves soil structure, reduces disease pressure
Nightshade Family Rotation with Soil-Building Crops
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Tomatoes and peppers
Year 2: Cover crops or green manure (like clover or buckwheat)
Companion Planting Strategy:
Plant basil near tomatoes to improve flavour and repel pests
Grow marigolds around nightshades to deter nematodes
Benefits: Restores soil health, interrupts pest and disease cycles
Cucurbit and Herb Companion Rotation
Rotation Sequence:
Year 1: Cucumbers, squash, and melons
Year 2: Grow nitrogen-fixing legumes
Companion Planting Strategy:
Plant dill and nasturtiums with cucumbers
Interplant radishes to deter cucumber beetles
Benefits: Enhances pollination, natural pest control, soil nutrition improvement
How do you know if your rotation is working?
How would you know if your rotation system is working? Well, first of all, take a close look at your soil. It should have a deep brown to almost black colour, which indicates an increased amount of organic matter and a high nutrient content.
Secondly, track pests and diseases over several seasons and check if they have at least not spread, at best diminished.
The harvest yield, of course, is also a good indicator of whether your rotational system works. A good harvest shows good, rich soil which will be a result of a well-working crop rotation.
Start crop rotation now!
Implementing crop rotation in your vegetable garden is one of the smartest decisions you can make for long-term gardening success! The guidelines in this post show you what to do to keep your soil healthy, diminish pests and diseases and have a great harvest year after year.
And remember that even small gardens benefit enormously from crop rotation!
Start planning your garden’s crop rotation right now, and I promise you that by this time next year, you’ll be amazed at the difference in its productivity and health! Your soil will be replenished with nutrients, you’ll have healthy plants and above all, you’ll gather an abundant harvest.
In March, we still have night frosts (and even some day frosts) but that doesn’t mean that there is nothing to do in the garden. Quite the opposite! It’s time to awaken our gardens and even sow and plant our first vegetables! There are several essential garden tasks that we should do in March and if you want to learn what they are, you’re in the right place here!
#1 Fill up raised beds
Raised beds are not only filled with soil but layered with different organic materials like twigs, leaves and plant stems underneath. When that material decomposes, it is reduced in volume which makes it sink down.
Now that your raised beds are empty, it’s a good time to fill them up with humus and compost. Fill more than the surface level, ideally forming a little mound as the soil will sink again during the next weeks.
#2 Create new beds
If you want to enlarge your garden space, now is a good time to create new beds. As you may know, I love this method of putting in new patches as it doesn’t require digging or other heavy work, is very quickly done and wonderfully effective.
#3 Sprout potatoes
It’s still too early to plant potatoes, but you can give them a headstart by sprouting them. Lay them out flatly on a surface where they get lots of light. I usually put the potatoes into egg cartons that I place on the window sill. After some time, they grow little green sprouts.
#4 Airing cold frames and greenhouses
With more sun hours, temperatures rise quickly in cold frames and greenhouses. Increased temperatures lead to increased condensation which can make our plants rot. Air your cold frames and greenhouse regularly to let the moisture get out.
If you have protected plants with fir branches against the cold, it’s now time to remove them. While they were great in winter, we now need lighter materials for coverage, like straw or a winter protection vlies that let the light through. Fir branches at this stage of the season are too dense and can even impair growing.
#6 Remove mulch
Mulch is not only a good protection against weeds but it’s also a good insulator. On the down side, that means that it keeps the cold in the soil for longer than we want to. For that reason, it’s an important garden task in March to remove the mulch from our beds by raking it to the edges. That way, the soil can warm up quicker.
#7 Weeding
Even though we’ve covered the beds with mulch, there will still be some weeds. When we remove the mulch it’s best to pull out the weeds that have grown underneath. Thankfully, they’ll come off easily.
Additionally, when the soil is now bare and warms up, weeds will also start to grow. Pull them out soon before they get too large.
#8 Strawberries
You can plant new strawberries now and protect them with a vlies. If you have strawberries in your garden already, remove all wilted leaves now. They may be infected with diseases and by removing them you can prevent those from spreading.
#9 Rhubarb
Another garden task you can do in March is to put a bucket over your rhubarb to help it grow faster. The principle is that the early spring sun warms up the air and the soil underneath the bucket which makes the rhubarb sprout faster. The lack of light doesn’t hamper that but makes sure that the stalks become especially tender. With this method, rhubarb can be harvested already about 4 – 6 weeks after covering.
#10 Seed-starting indoors
There’s quite a list of vegetables you can seed-start indoors in March. To get the full overview of what plants you can sow now, go to this blog post.
At the same time, check the seedlings that you’ve started earlier in the year daily. Make sure the plants have enough water and are aired regularly so that excessive condense moisture will not cause rotting.
#11 Sowing / planting outdoors
Admittedly, there are not many plants you can sow outdoors in March, but still, there are some. Here is an overview of vegetables that can be sowed and planted outdoors now:
Transplanted vegetables not only need protection against the cold but also against pests like snails and slugs who are very hungry now. A slug fence or collar is a good physical barrier against our slimy fellow lodgers and hopefully will keep them at bay.
Be grateful for every little helper 😊.
The last months we were reduced to dreaming up our vegetable gardens. Now is the time to take action! And although it may still be cold outside, we can already prepare the soil and plant some early vegetables. Grab your gardening gloves, hop outside and get gardening!
Where February still represents winter with a hint of spring as the days get longer, March is quite the opposite: spring with a hint of winter. There’s something magical about that transition from winter’s quiet to spring’s promise that gets my – still too clean – fingers itching and making me want to dig in the dirt. With rising temperatures in March, the list of vegetables to sow and plant grows as well.
While we can seed-start cold-sensitive veggies indoors, there are a few robust vegetables that can already be sowed and planted outdoors. Read on to learn what to sow and plant in March.
Loofahs belong to the cucumber family. As they like it very warm, they can only be cultivated in the greenhouse in my zone (7b). If you also want to include loofahs in your garden, now is the time to start them indoors. In my experience, it helps germination when we roughen up the seeds by grinding their edges on sandpaper and afterwards soaking them in lukewarm water for 24 hours before putting them into the soil.
Loofahs – like cucumbers – don’t like being transplanted, so I take larger pots and put in one seed per pot. That way their roots won’t get meddled with and we only have to disturb them once when we plant them outside.
Tomatoes
Mid-March is the right time to start all those tomato varieties indoors that you want to cultivate outdoors. Tomatoes for the greenhouse can already be started in February but if you have missed it then, it’s not too late to start them now.
Usually, eggplants, chillies and peppers are started in February or even January because they need quite a long time to grow. You can still start them now, however! They may be a bit behind their time but it’s not too late to grow them.
Greenhouse cucumbers
It’s too early to start cucumbers for the great outdoors but if you want to cultivate them in the greenhouse, now is the time to start them. As with loofahs, cucumbers do not like to be transplanted, so take a large enough pot and put only one seed into it. That way, they need not been thinned and can later be planted in the greenhouse without having their roots disturbed.
Leek / Onions
Sow winter leek and – if you haven’t already – onions. I either sow 2 – 3 seeds per small pot or I take a larger container and sow them in rows that I will be thinning later.
Onions I usually sow in small pots with three seeds per pot. When I transplant them later, I leave those small bundles of three together.
Lettuce
It’s best to sow lettuce every 3 – 4 weeks to ensure a continuous supply. There are some varieties that we can sow outdoors in March while at the same time seed-starting later varieties indoors. When it gets warmer, we can replace the harvested lettuce with those pre-grown plants and at the same time sow lettuce in different varieties directly into the beds.
Herbs
Parsley needs a really long time to germinate and if you haven’t started it already in February, now is the time to do so.
Herbs, like basil, savoury, chervil, cress and others can now be pre-cultivated indoors, as well. Either sow several seeds in large pots (and thin them later if necessary) or take small seed trays and put one seed per tray.
Cabbages
We have already seed-started different members of the cabbage family in February, but we can still sow (again)
Red and white cabbage
Kohlrabi
Broccoli
Cauliflower and
Savoy cabbage
Remember to label the pots and note meticulously the kind of vegetable you’ve sowed and its variety! You won’t be able to deduce it from the seedlings later. Believe me, I’ve been there and you won’t want to make the same mistake.
Nasturtium
Nasturtium is a great companion for cucumbers. It attracts insects that are harmful to cucumbers like aphids, white flies and squash bugs and thus acts like a life trap to keep them away from the sensitive cucumbers. At the same time, it confuses and deters cucumber beetles and nematodes.
If all that wouldn’t be enough reason to plant nasturtium, it’s also a pretty sight in the garden with its beautiful flowers and the whole plant (flowers, leaves and seeds) is edible.
Enough reasons to grow nasturtium? Grab your seed package and seed-start it now!
Potatoes
Sprouting your potatoes in March will give them a headstart for when you plant them in April. To sprout potatoes, lay them out on a surface and expose them to the light, for example on a windowsill. I usually use egg cartons in which I put the potatoes. After a few days, we can see small sprouts growing out of the potatoes.
What to sow and plant outdoors in March
Depending on your hardiness zone, it may still be too early to sow anything outdoors, but in zone 7b, where I live, it’s ok to do so – IF we cover the seeds with protective covers or sow in the cold frame.
There are early varieties that can be sowed outside mid to end of March. Just remember that peas are climbers and therefore install a trellis or net between the rows.
Carrots
Again, we’re talking early varieties here. If you have planted onion bulbs in autumn, sow the carrots in the rows between the onions. That way, carrots and onions will protect one another from harmful pests.
Broad beans
You can either sow broad beans outside in late autumn or now in March. It’s also possible to seed-start them indoors in January and plant them out now.
Broad beans are very tolerant to low temperatures and can even stand light frosts which is why they don’t need protection against the cold. I usually cover them with fleece anyway, if not for their sake then at least for my peace of mind…
Lettuce
We’re talking about varieties here that are very tolerant against cold temperatures like Asia lettuce and winter purslane. If we sow those outdoors now in March and later in April plant the varieties we have seed-started indoors now, we can continually harvest different kinds of leafy greens. This method of sowing vegetables every 3 – 4 weeks is called succession planting which not only ensures a continuous harvest but also that our beds are always covered.
Radishes
Radishes can either be sowed in a cold frame, a greenhouse or outdoors with protective fleece As they have an exceptionally short maturity time, sow them every 2 – 3 weeks to have a continuous harvest.
Spinach
Spinach is almost a no-brainer: sow it, cover it with winter protection fleece and just let it grow. It’s usually quite tolerant against the cold and will grow well under protective cover.
Planting outdoors
Before we plant anything outdoors, it’s important to harden the seedlings off by gradually exposing them to outdoor temperatures. Start by putting your plants outside or in the greenhouse for 2 – 3 hours at first and prolong that time over the course of a week before transplanting.
Lettuce
Lettuce that we have started in February is now ready for transplanting outside. Make sure that the seedlings are not planted too deep or they may rot. As a rule of thumb, put them into the soil as deep as they were in the pot.
Strawberries
Plant strawberries in March, at best different varieties that will ensure a long harvest, and cover them with protective vlies.
Spinach
If you have started spinach indoors, now is the time to transplant it, otherwise you can sow it now directly into the patch (see above). No matter which way you take to get spinach into your garden, it will still need a protective cover against too-cold temperatures.
Cultivating a vegetable garden is one of the most satisfying occupations in the world! However: sometimes it can be pretty frustrating, especially when you’ve invested a lot of time (and money) and the outcome is a meager – if any- harvest. I know because I’ve been there as well. During my first years in vegetable gardening I made many mistakes. Mistakes you won’t have to repeat as you can profit from what I learned. With the right knowledge, you can sidestep common pitfalls and cultivate a thriving garden that’ll make your neighbours green with envy.
Ready to avoid mistakes? Great! Here comes your shortcut to garden success!
#1 Planning too big
Every year when I browse through seed catalogues I think about enlarging my vegetable gardening space to make room for all the plants and varieties I want to try out. After some time in cloud-cuckoo-land, however, I usually come to my senses and remember that our garden’s size is well manageable now and every square foot larger would make it overwhelming.
Solution:
Not only but especially when you are a beginner, I recommend thinking big but starting small. With growing experience, you can enlarge your garden space step-by-step until you’ve reached the garden size that’s manageable for you.
#2 Choosing the wrong spot
Before creating a vegetable garden you must make sure to pick the perfect spot. The key requirements to be met are
Sunlight: Vegetables need at least 8 hours of sunlight per day. Everything below that time is too shady.
Drainage: Make sure that the spot you choose is not water-logged but has good drainage.
Protection: Your garden should be protected from cold, harsh winds
Solution:
Choose the spot for your vegetable garden wisely. It should be sunny, well-drained and protected from cold winds.
#3 Not knowing your soil
Soil matters, ladies and gentlement, and it’s a huge difference whether your garden’s soil is sand or loam (just to name a few). Determining your soil type is the first step to learning what you can grow and adjusting it to your plants’ needs. In this post you can learn more about the different types of soil and their characteristics.
Solution: There are soil test kits available online and in nurseries. Once you know what soil type your garden has, you know what plants will thrive there and what you can do to spruce it up for other vegetables.
#4 Not knowing your hardiness zone
Hardiness zones are determined by the annual minimum temperature of a region, thus telling you what plants will thrive and survive there. Not knowing your hardiness zone may tempt you to grow vegetables outside that will not have enough sun hours and high enough temperatures to mature fully and produce a good harvest.
Another important piece of information you’ll get is the last frost date for your region. After that date, it’s safe to plant sensitive veggies like tomatoes and cucumbers outdoors. Any earlier can kill your plants (see #10)
Solution: Go to plantmaps.com and check out your hardiness zone.
#5 Using the wrong plants
First of all: there is no such thing as “wrong” plants but rather plants not suitable for your hardiness zone. Once you know what zone you live in, you’ll know what plants you can grow in your region
Tempting as it may be to go for sun-loving tomatoes in zone 4, you won’t be happy with the outcome if you plant them outside. The time frame of optimal conditions will simply not be long enough for them to ripen all their fruit.
Solution: Check your hardiness zone and choose your plants accordingly. If necessary, make adjustments like adding a greenhouse or a cold frame to prolong your season and create a better climate for sensitive veggies like tomatoes and peppers if necessary.
Check your hardiness zone and, if necessary, make adjustments l. Alternatively, cultivate sensitive plants in pots and bring them indoors as soon as it gets too inhospitable for them outside.
#6 Sowing/planting in wet and/or cold soil
One year, spring wouldn’t come and when around mid-April the sun finally started to come out, I was so anxious to make up for the “lost” time that I started to sow into the still wet and cold soil. Needless to say, it didn’t work to smear the seeds in. Germination was practically zero and I had to do it again a few weeks later when the soil was finally dry and warm.
Solution: Wait until the soil is sufficiently dry and warm in spring before sowing and planting.
#7 Poor soil preparation
Plants draw nutrients from the soil and to make sure that your garden is thriving next year, you’ll have to prepare your soil to fill it up with nutrients for the upcoming season. Gardeners who neglect this task, will soon have only weak plants with little to no harvest.
Solution: When everything is harvested in autumn, it’s time to put your garden to sleep under a thick blanket of mulch or green manure like phacelia. This not only protects the soil but adds nutrients when the organic matter decomposes.
Additionally, work in compost or well-rotted manure in spring before you start sowing and planting to further enrich the soil with nutrients.
#8 Poor weeding
Weeds compete with your veggies for nutrients, water and space and believe me: weeds clearly have the advantage! That said, it should go without saying that sowing and planting between weeds will neither make you nor your plants happy.
Solution: I know it’s tedious but your garden beds must be absolutely weed-free before you start sowing and planting. When you cover them with a thick layer of mulch, there won’t be many weeds and this task will be done in no time.
It’s best to weed at the same day you sow and plant. That way, the weeds need some time to start growing again and won’t compete with your vegetables for nutrients.
If you mark the sowing rows, you can weed in between without accidentally ripping out your soon-to-be-growing plants.
#9 Seed-starting too early or too late
The first sunny days in January and I want to seed-start whatever seeds I’ve got in my storage boxes. But while there are some vegetables you can start as early as January, it would be too early for most of them. Take tomatoes for example. Seed-started in January they would only become leggy and too weak to hold their own weight by mid-May when we can finally plant them outdoors.
If, on the other hand, we seed-start them in April, there won’t be enough time for them to mature and produce a good harvest.
Solution: If in doubt when to seed-start vegetables, check your hardiness zone first and then have a good look at the seed packages where you’ll find the necessary information.
#10 Planting too early or too late
Sunlovers like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants cannot be planted outdoors before the last night frosts are over; otherwise, they will die. Spinach and some lettuce varieties, on the other hand, cannot stand temperatures above a certain degree without producing blooms.
The right timing when planting is equally important as with seed-starting.
Solution: Check your hardiness zone for the last frost dates and either look at seed packages for ideal planting time or ask in your local nursery.
#11 Planting too shallow /too deep
If you plant too shallow, your vegetables will have trouble with rooting and become prone to falling over. Planting too deep, on the other hand, will result in restrained growth and small plants.
Solution: As a rule of thumbs, plant your vegetables as deep as they were in the pots. Exceptions are tomatoes, which you can plant twice as deep as the pot they were in before and bulb celery which you should plant higher than the pot level.
#12 Ignoring spacing
Cabbages should be planted 50 cm (20 inches) apart, but nursery (or seed-started) plants look so small that sometimes we underestimate the space they require when fully grown and plant them too close together.
Solution: As with seed-starting and planting time, you’ll find the ideal spacing for your vegetables on the seed packages. Alternatively, ask in your local nursery.
#13 Not observing crop rotation
I get it: the plan for your vegetable garden has worked out wonderfully and you want to copy it every year. Never change a winning horse, right?
Wrong! Planting the same kind of vegetables in the same place will leach out the soil and result in reduced to no harvest.
Solution: Observe the plant families and rotate your crops every year. Where last year you got strong uptakers (like cabbage or tomatoes), you’ll put plants with low nutrient uptake this year (e.g. beans or peas). Next year, you’ll follow that with medium uptakers like carrots or onions.
#14 Monoculture
If you grow only one sort of vegetable in a bed (yes, that’s monoculture), they are more likely to get diseases or be slaughtered by pests. Mixed culture is the keyword here!
Solution: Mix plants that go well together, like carrots and onions who keep pests away from each other. Find further examples of great companions here.
#15 Watering mistakes
Watering, it seems, is the most favourite task of many gardeners. They water until their plants cry for their life jackets and start singing “My heart will go on”. Plants can drown, too, you know.
Not watering at all, however, is no solution either. Water is what keeps the plants’ metabolism running. If they get not enough water, plants will die.
Solution: Water thoroughly after sowing and planting and then: don’t. Only water again if the soil is really dry and your plants show signs of wilting. That way, they grow deeper roots which makes them sturdier and healthy.
Additionally, cover the soil between the plants with mulch (see next point).
#16 Not using mulch
My granny and my mom prided themselves with their “clean” vegetable gardens where there were only plants and (weed-free) soil. The amount of time it cost, however, to keep this soil weed-free and to water the plants – especially during hot summers – was immense.
In my garden today, the soil is almost always covered in mulch, even in winter. It keeps the weeds at bay, the soil moist and produces compost when it decomposes.
Solution: Mulch your beds thickly as soon as the plants are about 10 cm (4 inches) high. Good mulch material are wood chips, grass clippings, leaves and half-rotted compost.
#17 Improper fertilisation
“The more the better” is not true when it comes to fertilisation. Some plants need many nutrients, others not so many. Some need more nitrogen, while others need a healthy dose of phosphorous and potassium.
Also, the timing of fertilisation is important. Giving too much too soon or all in one dose will result in weak (or even dead) plants.
Solution: Add a healthy dose of organic or mineral fertiliser (for example well-rotted manure or rock powder) when planting and get acquainted with your vegetables’ needs. Tomatoes, for example, want phosphorous and potassium about 4 – 6 weeks after planting to produce many fruits. When in doubt, rather use less fertiliser.
#18 Not using fencing
As you know, my vegetable garden is situated on a meadow at the outskirts of my village. If I hadn’t installed a (sturdy) fence, the deer, rabbits and even the foxes would eat my produce while the dogs and cats would be happily digging holes and misusing it as a loo.
Solution: Depending on where your garden is, set up a fence to keep off animals.
#19 Not controlling pests
One snail is not the end of the world but have you ever seen just ONE snail? Me neither! When they come, they come in droves like every pest under the sun.
Solution: Regularly check on your garden so that you can intervene at the early stages of a pest invasion and prevent a plague.
Additionally, apply the rules of companion planting to repel certain pests.
#20 Not using pollinators
No fruit without pollinators, right? So make sure you’ve got plenty of those flowers in and around your garden that attract pollinating insects.
Solution: Flowers and herbs like nasturtium, basil and calendula are not only a beautiful sight in your garden but also help attract pollinators for all your fruit vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers. Make sure to integrate bloomers in your vegetable garden.
#21 Not pruning
This mostly applies to fruit trees and bushes but also to vegetables like tomatoes. Letting them grow as they like will considerably reduce your harvest.
Solution: Fruit trees and bushes are best pruned in winter while they’re dormant. With fruit trees, cut off all branches that grow downwards, inwards or obstract each other. With fruit shrubs, cut off old branches at soil level. And here is a comprehensive guide on how to grow tomatoes successfully with a detailed explanation on how to prune them.
#22 Harvesting too late
It’s interesting to see how many gardeners hesitate to harvest until it’s (almost) too late. If not harvested at the right time, radishes and kohlrabi will get “woody”, lettuce will suddenly sprout blooms and tomatoes will become mushy.
Solution: Always harvest as soon as your vegetables are ripe. That way, you’ll not only have nutrient-dense vegetables but often will induce your plants to produce more fruit.
#23 Not enjoying gardening
In my opinion, this is the most important point! Don’t get all uptight when it comes to gardening. There will always be something that won’t turn out quite as expected. After all, it’s Mother Nature we are working here with.
So relax and, while trying to do your best, enjoy your garden. Take your time to sit there in the sunshine, admire all that grows, listen to the birds and savour your harvest! Our gardens should always be our happy places.
Spring is still far away at the beginning of the year, but the new gardening season has started already! The first vegetables wait eagerly for you to seed starting them because they need this headstart to prepare for the warm season. But seedling cultivation isn’t just for spring time. In fact, when you seed-start veggies until late summer, you’ll have a continuous harvest.
Let’s see what you can do to make it a success.
Why seed starting?
Isn’t it a lot of hard and tedious work to seed-start vegetables indoors?
Well, I would be lying if I told you you wouldn’t need to put in an effort. But it’s so worth it! In fact, there are several huge advantages of seed starting:
Saving costs
Seed starting will save you an enormous amount of money. Don’t believe me? Let me show you a small calculation:
One seed package of tomatoes, containing 10 seeds, costs about 4 €, that is 40 cents per plant. One tomato plant at the nursery costs at least 4 €, sometimes even more, depending on the variety. That’s ten times the amount you pay for seeds. Seeing as I grew about 40 tomato plants last year that’s a saving of 144 €!
Even if you just have a small garden or even only some pots you use for growing vegetables, your savings will still be considerable.
Variety
When you buy seedlings from a nursery, you usually can’t choose the variety of the vegetables you want ot plant. Or – if you can choose – they only have very few of the most common types.
BUT: when you decide to start your own vegetables and browse your first seed catalogue you’ll find a whole new world of seed varieties. It’ll be almost as if suddenly you’ve discovered the door to Narnia!
You can choose from varieties that are perfect for your climate, heirloom varieties, old varieties and even varieties that have become almost extinct! By supporting this diversity, you not only get healthier plants that are better accustomed to your climate but you also contribute actively to preserving the diversity of varieties.
Headstart
We all love tomatoes, eggplants, chilis and peppers but they need a long time to mature. If we were to sow them only when it’s warm enough outside (in my zone that’s mid-May), they would never have enough time to ripen and they’d only get to produce some green fruit before autumn frosts fall.
By seed-starting we fool them a bit by pretending that it’s warmer and sunnier than it actually is, inducing them to germinate. By the time we can transplant them, they’ll have grown into healthy and sturdy young plants already.
Plant protection
Indoors, your vegetable seedling will be secure from pests like snails, cabbage flies, voles and other hungry animal mouths. Also, they are protected from rain, wind and strong sunshine while still young and vulnerable.
Efficient use of bed space
You can use your bed space more efficiently when seed starting. Sow more than the required amount of plants and only transplant the healthiest and sturdiest outside.
When your beds are fully planted in early summer, seed start autumn vegetables indoors. When you harvest a vegetable variety, you can already plant the next batch, making sure there won’t be a gap for too long.
Which vegetables can you seed start?
Basically, there are three groups of vegetables:
– those that MUST be seed-started to get a chance of harvest
– those that CAN be seed-started but needn’t necessarily be and lastly
– those that MUST NOT be seed-started.
The sloths amongst our vegetables are tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, chilis and physalis. They need a long time to mature and for that reason must be sowed indoors between January and March already. Later would be too late.
Then we have the “sensitive souls” like lettuce and all cabbages. Theoretically, you can sow them directly outside but they are prone to devoured by slugs while still young and their chances of surviving an attack of the pests are meagre.
Starting them indoors, however, and not transplanting them before they have become healthy, sturdy seedlings, makes them stronger and less vulnerable to pests.
The third group are those vegetables that can’t cope with transplanting, among them almost all root vegetables for example carrots and turnips. Think about it: their goal is to develop long and big roots, so they don’t like being removed from the soil (even for a short time) to be transplanted again. Root vegetables are best sown directly into the bed, except for knob celery.
When in doubt, look at the back of your seed packages: most of them have a recommendation as well as the appropriate sowing and planting times there.
Timing Your Seedlings
Every vegetable has its own special requirements regarding the time of sowing and we gardeners must stick to that time frame as if our veggies lives depended on it.
Which they do.
I know how tempting it can be to sow tomatoes in January already but believe me you’ll regret it. Yep, speaking of experience here. By the time you can finally plant your tomatoes outside, they’ll be too long and weak to bear their own weight, let alone bear lots of fruit.
The right timing is a decisive factor for healthy and fruitful plants. It mostly depends on the last frost dates in your hardiness zone.
Some vegetables must be seed-started early, others have a longer time frame. If you want to harvest continually (and who doesn’t?), one-time sowing is not enough. That’s why we sow vegetables like spinach, radishes, lettuce and carrots several times a season. This principle of staggered sowing and planting is called succession planting and is a total game-changer in the vegetable garden! If you want to learn more about it, this article gives you all the details.
Essential Supplies
Plant lamps
Light is an important factor when it comes to seedling cultivation. I have a rather large south window that’s occupied with seedlings from February to summer and that’s good. Nevertheless, when the seedlings develop a certain stage of maturity, I put them in the (cooler) guest toilet and install a plant lamp. These lamps not only have the ideal light range for plants (which is why they have a very nasty violet shade for our eyes) but they can also be timed to shine for 12 – 16 hours, depending on the plants’ needs. You’ll never get this amount of light time, not even at a sunny window.
It’s clever to use a shelf for your cultivation of seedlings and install plant lamps on the underside of each shelf board to save space.
Planting pots
Now that we know where to put our seedlings and what lights to use, we need containers. Basically, we can use all sorts of planting pots and trays as long as they are not too high (which would require too much soil) and have good drainage. You can reuse plastic pots from former plants, special cultivation trays and even plastic fruit boxes. There are ready-made biodegradable pots that you can plant out. Alternatively, you can make paper pots that you fill with soil by yourself, or you use egg cartons or even egg shells. There’s almost no limit to the variety of pots you can use.
No matter what containers you use, you should have a kind of transparent hood you can put onto it to create a greenhouse atmosphere with warm temperatures and relatively high humidity. If you don’t have a hood, you can also use glass covers or even cling film. Make sure that you lift it several times a day to prevent mould or other fungi from growing. Once the seedlings are large enough to be separated, you can leave them without this protection.
Wash the containers thoroughly with hot water before using them for seedling cultivation. That way you can destroy germs and fungi before they can wreak havoc.
Heating mat
For warmth-loving plants such as the above-described tomatoes and eggplants, peppers and physalis, you may want to use a heating mat on which you can put the containers. These mats work like a hot water bottle and warm up the soil, inducing the seeds to germinate.
Cultivation soil
No matter the outer appearance of your pots or trays, their “inner value” – aka cultivation soil – is what counts! A good cultivation soil is crumbly and low in nutrients. “Normal” potting soil is not suitable for seed-starting as it contains too many nutrients. Seedlings don’t need nutrients yet. If the soil contains too many nutrients, the seedlings grow too fast, become leggy and the roots may be damaged.
You can either buy ready-made cultivation soil or use a mixture of equal parts garden soil, well-rotted plant compost and sand. Manure compost is not suitable as it contains too many nutrients. If you use homemade soil, you’ll want to bake it at 150 °C (300 °F) for 20 minutes to kill weed seeds and diseases.
Seeds
For me, seed catalogues are a bit like Santa’s grotto. I can spend hours – days even – browsing through them and noting down every plant I’d like to grow although I don’t buy all of those seeds in the end. But still plenty. Well, other women buy shoes…
Anyway, with newly bought seeds, you can be sure that they’ll germinate but often there are more seeds in a package that you’ll need in one season. Likely, you’ll have seeds from last year – or even the year before. As seeds can exterminate, you’ll have to check if they still germinate with this simple trick:
Fold two paper kitchen towels in half and moist them with water. Put 10 seeds of one seed package onto one towel and cover them with the second one. Keep it all moist and wait until the seeds start to germinate. When at least 8 out of the 10 seeds start growing (that’s 80 %), this package is still ok to use.
Plant labels
There was a time when I passed labelling my plants because I knew I’d recognize them once they had germinated simply by looking at their leaves. Ok, I was too lazy to label.
Long story short: I didn’t know which plant was which and my garden became a huge Kinder Suprise Egg. It was a bit like buying a truckload of tins, scraping off the banderoles, mixing them up and playing food roulette.
An easy way to label your plants is with ice sticks. Write the name of the vegetable and variety with a pencil on the stick and put it into the pot. For outdoors, plastic or slate labels are better to endure weathering.
Miscellaneous
You’ll need a watering ball or a spray bottle which are loads better for watering sensitive seeds as they don’t have a hard jet of water that could water off the seeds to the corners of the pot.
Later, when the seedlings are ready to be separated and repotted, you dibber comes in handy.
Ideal place for seedling cultivation
Seedling cultivation will occupy some space indoors for quite a long time. So, where to put all those plants? The most important factor to consider when choosing a place is temperature.
It shouldn’t be too warm. A cool stairwell, a non-heated guest toilet or even the basement are great. Although some vegetables like tomatoes, peppers and eggplants need it warm to germinate but once they are large enough to be separately planted into larger pots, they are happy with cooler temperatures.
Seed Starting Process step-by-step
Got everything you need for seedling cultivation? Great! Let’s get started.
1. Sowing
Put the soil into your containers and moisten it. Sow the seeds as deep as they need to be sowed (look for that information on the back of the seed packages), lightly press the soil so that the seeds are pressed down and water it all with a spray bottle or a watering ball.
Oh, and remember to label your plants 😉
Some plants, like lettuce or basil mustn’t be covered with soil but need the light to germinate.
2. Temperatures
Some vegetables need relatively high temperatures to germinate, others like it cooler. You can usually find this information on the back of the seed package. Giving your seeds the right temperature is vital for germination so make sure to hit it right off. At this early stage, the right temperature is even more important than light. So, regularily check the temp, keep the soil moist and wait.
3. Germination
The first green tips are looking out of the soil. Hurray! Now it’s time to move the seedling trays to your cultivation station with the plant lamps.
4. Care
When your plants have their first growth spurt you needn’t do much. Just water the seedlings regularly to keep the soil moist. Yet, while before you could water from above, right onto the soil, now I recommend watering either from the side or into the saucers your trays stand in and let the soil absorb the moisture. That way, the leaves won’t get wet which could cause diseases.
5. Thinning
When the seedlings have developed their first pair of real leaves (the seed leaves don’t count), it’s time to thin them out by transplanting them into larger pots. This not only provides them with more space for developing roots but also with more light and nutrients.
Make sure you plant the seedlings as deep as they were before. Tomatoes are an exception: plant them deeper than before because they can grow new roots on their stem which makes them grow sturdier.
If you are intimidated by thinning, why not start with vegetables like pumpkin, summer squash or sunflowers. You can sow one seed per pot and needn’t thin them out.
6. Growth
Repotted, put your seedlings back to the cultivation station. Make sure the soil is kept moist and lightly fertilise cabbages and tomatoes.
7. Hardening off
Before we can release the seedlings into the wild outdoors, we have to harden them off. Start about a week before transplanting and put the seedlings outside in the shade for a couple of hours. Each day, prolong the time and after 3 days even put them into the sunlight (not around noon, that would be too much). To make them accustomed to the wind, gently brush them with your hand, simulating wind movement.
8. Transplanting
You’ve grown healthy, sturdy plants that have already hardened off. Now it’s ready to plant them outside. Transplant your seedlings on a cloudy day or in the evening to reduce the risk of plant shock. Make sure you plant them at the right distance from one another (again: check your seed package).
Water the seedlings properly after planting so that the soil washes properly around the roots, leaving no air holes. If necessary cover the seedlings with nets to protect them from the weather and/or pests.
Common Problems and Solutions
There are a few common problems that may show when seed-starting vegetables:
Mould/fungus diseases
Fungus diseases spread best in damp and relatively cool environments. If you have mould or other diseases in your trays or on your seedlings, you probably haven’t ventilated the trays enough.
Solution: Open the hoods more frequently and for a longer time. Also, make sure that the soil is only moist but not wet.
Leggy seedlings
When your seedlings grow very long (“leggy) and have rather light-green leaves, they usually don’t get enough light and try to compensate by spindly growing towards the light.
Other reasons for leggy growth are too high temperatures or too many nutrients in the soil.
Solution: Install plant lamps Move the seedlings to a cooler place. Repot the seedlings into nutrient-low soil.
Nutrient deficiencies
If your seedlings stagnate or even get yellow leaves, they may need nutrients. Hungry plants like tomatoes and cabbages need their first gift of fertiliser already about two weeks after germination.
Solution: Add some diluted liquid vegetable fertiliser
Pests
Obviously, we’re not talking about snails or voles here. Yet, there is the risk for example of fungus gnats in the soil. Last year, I had an invasion of those blighters and didn’t realize it until the little black flies were everywhere and my seedlings started to wilt.
Solution: Fungus gnats can be fought off with neem oil, nematodes or other predatory mites which you can buy (online) and add to the water.
Watering issues
Overwatering can cause root damage while underwatering causes wilting. Both will eventually kill your seedlings.
Control your seedlings every day and adjust your watering routine to their needs.
Solution: Water until the soil is moist but not wet. Check your trays regularly.
Ready for seed-starting!
Now you’ve got all the equipment AND the knowledge for successful seedling cultivation. Remember: temperature and light are some of the most vital factors in seed starting. When you stick to the steps I described here, you’ll gain healthy plants that will yield a rich harvest in summer.
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