Get your seeds in order!

It's that time again!  Can you believe it?  Time to get your seeds in order for spring planting!  If you need to still order some, now is the time!

In just 1 month, it will be time to get the indoor plants started here in Wisconsin!  For the more southern, warmer, areas, it's already time to plant!  Not sure about your area?  Just put your zip code into this handy dandy little site it will tell you the best time to get your plants started.  http://www.almanac.com/gardening/planting-dates/TN/Clarksville  That link also helps you know what needs started indoors, and what doesn't.

We do some serious gardening around here.  So my list is pretty extensive for my seed needs.  Most all though, will not need to be purchased this year.  Thanks to growing heirloom plants (see my previous post about that) and participating in an heirloom seed swap.

Items we'll be planting this year that I need to get started indoors next month are:

Tomatoes - I will plant Amish Paste Tomatoes, as well as another variety, but will need to plant them FAR away from each other in order to prevent cross pollination so I can save the seeds.  Most modern breeds of tomato do not cross easily, but heirloom are old variety, not modern, so I'd rather be safe than sorry and grow some crazy hybrid the following year.

Peppers - All varieties.  Jalapeno, bell, chilies, etc.  These will cross pollinate and need to be separated by at least 500 feet to prevent that.

Celery - One of the slowest growing crops on the planet Earth.  Probably not, really, but they do take around 6 months to grow.  Even in my 6 month time frame, they still didn't go to seed.  So maybe longer is necessary in my area for that.

Watermelon - In most areas, this can be started outside in the ground.  But for us, I start them indoors to try to get them done a little sooner.

Potatoes - (Aprilish) I won't actually plant these indoors and transfer, but I will go through my cellar stash and choose which ones I want to use for new potatoes and cut them to plant.  You want to allow at least an inch or two portion with an eye, or sprout, on it.  Allow it a few days to heal where you've cut it before planting.  I've cut them and left them for a month before and they grew fine.  Even with huge foot long sprouts.  When you plant, just put the eyes to the sky, about 6 inches deep.  If the sprout is too big to go underground, not a big deal.  They'll still grow fine.

Sweet Potatoes - Around April 1st I'll go through my stash and choose a couple of sweet potatoes to cut into 2 inch cubes to start slips.  It takes approximately 6 weeks to prepare a sweet potato into planting outdoors.  For more info on how to do this, you can go here - Start sweet potatoes

If you are going to start your onions from seed, you may want to start those now too.  I haven't had much luck with seed onion so last year I bought small bulbs from a local farm store and planted white and red onion.  I'll do the same this year.  It was cheap enough and the onions are very good.  Nice sized, good harvest, stored well.

Peas can be started outdoors in April as well.  They are cold tolerant and don't do well in heat so you want them to be done before the hot weather hits.

Broccoli, Cauliflower, and Cabbage.

In May, we'll start the rest of our items in the ground.

Lettuce
Green Beans
Dry beans, such as kidney, black turtle beans, pinto, navy beans
Squash
Zucchini
Pumpkins
Cucumber
Carrots
Spinach
Corn

And anything else we can think of that we want to try.

So, get your seeds ordered!  :)  The time is coming up fast!

My two favorite places to shop for seeds :

Seed Savers Heirloom Seeds
Baker Creek Seed Company