To seed or not to seed: How to decide

As more people get interested in growing their own food, should they also be more interested in growing it from seed? Here are some questions and answers to help you decide, along with trends that will probably reach your garden eventually whether you start from seed or not.

Why would you start plants from seeds?

There are several reasons you may want to grow seeds:

▪ If you’re growing a lot of food, you can save money by buying relatively inexpensive seed vs. plants that are already grown. “If all you need is six tomatoes, it won’t pay for itself,” says Ward Upham, an Extension associate at K-State.

▪ But if there is a variety of tomato you want to grow that you can find only in seed, it may be worth it. You are able to choose from many more varieties when buying seeds than you can find when buying plants.

▪ It’s wondrous to watch the miracle of growth from a little seed to a full-grown plant.

▪ You support biodiversity by growing non-hybrid and heirloom plants.

▪ You can’t get through winter any other way.

Why would you choose plants instead of seeds?

▪ You probably will need to buy equipment to grow seeds indoors. Most windows do not provide enough light to grow seedlings, so you need to have grow lights that you can suspend over the seedlings and raise as the seedlings grow. Plant stands, trays to grow seeds in, domes to cover the trays, and heating mats to help germination are among the other things you may want to invest in.

That’s not to say that there aren’t simpler ways to start seeds. You can grow seeds in any number of types of containers — from six-pack cells you got from the garden center last summer to Cool Whip tubs — as long as they have holes in the bottom; you can even make the containers out of newspaper, and plant the seedlings directly in the ground in them, because they’ll break down in the soil.

▪ You have to be committed to monitoring the plants to make sure they are kept moist, and to be alert to any insects or disease, and you have to create movement around them to take the place of wind they would otherwise get outside. If you rub your hand over plants 10 times in the morning and 10 times at night they’ll be stockier, Upham says. Some people use fans, but there was a study that showed that fans did some good, but rubbing over the top was better, he says.

Other tricks can be employed for particular plants to grow them at their best; onion seedlings, for example, should have the ends of their leaves snipped when they reach 4 to 5 inches tall to remove seed remnants and grow stockier, Upham says.

Once it’s time to move plants outside, they have to be acclimated gradually to their new surroundings and brought back in during cold snaps.

▪ If you keep plants too long indoors before moving them outside, they can flag. In that case, you can buy healthier plants that someone went to all the trouble of growing for you instead.

What type of gardener usually starts plants from seeds indoors?

“I think it’s kind of a niche thing,” says Sedgwick County extension agent Rebecca McMahon. “I think usually people who get interested in starting their own seeds are looking for a particular heirloom or a variety they can’t find at the garden center. And really our garden centers carry a nice range of varieties and heirlooms, but there’s a chance there’s something they’re not carrying. Or they’re sold out. Generally the folks that are wanting to start a garden of seed want to do heirloom tomatoes or a special variety of peppers or something. Someone who’s a real avid flower gardener, if they’re looking for something they can’t find except in seed form, then they’re going to start asking: How do I start this plant from seed?”

When do I start seeds?

The seedlings that do best are those that spend the least amount of time indoors, Upham says. You don’t want to start plants too early, or they will start to fade before you ever get them outside. And it’s too early to start most seeds, except for onions, which can be started now and are available in far more varieties in seed form than in sets or plants.

Seed-starting requires knowing when a type of plant should be placed outside in the garden, and counting back from that date the length of time it takes for the seedling to grow to planting size.

Onion plants, for example, can be planted outside relatively early, around late March, Upham says. They also take a relatively long time to grow to transplant size — six to eight weeks. So mid- to late January is seed-starting time.

The Sedgwick County Extension master gardeners tentatively will start seeds around the third week of February for their demo garden at 21st and Ridge Road. Cabbage and some lettuces are among the things that should be started around the third week of February for planting the third or fourth week of March, McMahon said. They don’t spend a long time indoors.

But many plants can’t be planted outside until after the last frost; the date of the average last frost in Wichita is April 11.

Where do I shop for seeds?

Now is the time to plan the garden and shop for seeds.

Garden centers and stores that have garden areas carry seeds; Wichita even has two stores that have “seed” in their names: Valley Feed & Seed at 1903 S. Meridian and Hillside Feed & Seed at 1805 S. Hillside.

You can also order seeds from many mail-order companies, either from their catalogs or Internet sites. In that case you usually have to pay shipping as well. High Mowing Organic Seeds, however, does not charge shipping on most things. And Burpee is offering free shipping through Feb. 29 (Leap Day) in acknowledgment of incorporating The Cook’s Garden into the Burpee catalog.

A recent online conversation between Margaret Roach, formerly with Martha Stewart and now running the A Way to Garden blog, and plant breeder and writer Joseph Tychonievich of the Garden Professors blog unearthed some of their favorite seed sources, some familiar and some not so much: Johnny’s Selected Seeds, Stokes Seeds (especially for zinnias, including the new Zinderella Peach), Pinetree Garden Seeds, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Adaptive Seeds, Hudson Valley Seed Library, Peace Seedlings and Turtle Tree Seed.

(By the way, both Roach and Tychonievich recommend growing the beautiful Gulag Stars kale from seed.)

If you buy seeds now, keep them in a cool, dry place, and don’t open them until you’re ready to plant, McMahon says. They shouldn’t need to be refrigerated if you plan to use them this year. And most seeds are good for two or three years, so you don’t have to plant all of them at once, McMahon says.

“I can never emphasize too much having a planting plan … prioritizing so you don’t buy more than you have space for,” she says. “Don’t feel like you have to start all of them this year or plant them all this year.”

What’s one easy way to grow plants from seeds?

Some plants can be started from seed directly outside in the garden. McMahon says there are certain things that are best started that way: zinnias, beans, peas. Peas are the first to go in, as they can sit in really cool soil and not rot, Upham says.

Cucumbers, watermelon, other vine crops and lettuce can be started from seed either indoors or outdoors, he says. Most people direct-sow them in the garden, but you can get a bit of an early start by starting them indoors. But if you start vine crops indoors, be ready, Upham says: They’re going to take off, and need only maybe three weeks lead time before going outside, whereas tomatoes may take six weeks.

What’s new in seeds this year?

The container-size craze for edibles continues. Burpee even has an On Deck hybrid sweet corn: “Simply plant nine seeds per 24-inch container and get ready to harvest in about two months.”

But gardeners should research exactly what is meant by “container” size, McMahon says.

“They could be a really small plant that is going to do really well in a 12-inch pot or they’re just a determinate plant but it still needs a 3- to 5-gallon pot if not bigger. You need to do a little more research about what the plant is looking for and how big the plant is actually going to get.”

Another ongoing trend she sees: “A lot of seed companies are focusing on what I call heirloom-type tomatoes. They have the different colors or stripes or shapes and are supposed to have good flavor but they’re more recent varieties, they’re not heirlooms. A lot of them have some disease resistance or are more productive than an heirloom might be.”

A combination of container and heirloom types could be what Tychonievich loves most when it comes to tomatoes: dwarf tomatoes from the Dwarf Tomato Project (dwarftomatoproject.net). These tomatoes have characteristics of heirlooms but are dwarf plants that don’t flop all over, he said in his online conversation with Roach. The seeds can be found online at Heritage Seed Market.

Seed names can be even more fun than their plants. New for 2016 at Adaptive Seeds: Piglet Willie’s French Black tomato. (It’s dark red with chocolate shoulders.)

What’s new in seed-starting equipment?

LED grow lights are starting to be used supplementally in the greenhouses at K-State and seem to be doing as good a job as older bulbs, Upham says. The prices of LEDs are coming down, and running the LEDs is cheaper than running the older ones. Upham says experimentation is still being done with finding the best wavelengths, and he recommends that gardeners who are interested use them on a trial basis to see how they work for them.

This story was originally published January 21, 2016 at 4:36 PM with the headline "To seed or not to seed: How to decide."