An All-Inclusive Guide to Starting Your Seeds Indoors

Let Your Vertical Vegetable Garden Thrive With High-Quality Seedlings

Exciting news: depending on which USDA hardiness zone you live in, it may almost be time to start your seeds indoors! Instead of buying seedlings from the store, growing your own can help you save money, have more control over your garden, ensure organics, and receive stronger plants. As experts in vertical vegetable gardening, we’ll walk you through the entire process and best practices to make this year’s garden your best yet.

What You Need to Know About Your Frost Dates

Finding the Perfect Time to Grow For Your Garden

Each USDA hardiness zone has two frost dates—the first and last. Since we’re focusing on spring gardening, the date that is more important during this time of year is the last frost date. This is when there is a 50% chance of the day being frost-free, meaning that it’s safer to start your outdoor gardening. While colder weather veggies may be less affected by potential frost, other, more sensitive plants, can be severely damaged. This is why frost dates are so important and should be followed! 

As a general rule of thumb, we recommend checking your weather patterns before planting, as frost dates can vary up to a week and there are always weather outliers. To be even more cautious, the “spring forward, fall back” rule adjusts the frost dates by two whole weeks and can help keep your seedlings safe. Once you know when you can start bringing your seedlings outdoors, then you can begin planning what you want to grow in your spring garden!

Set a Good Foundation With High-Quality Seeds and Soil

Investing in Your Garden Early On

High-quality seeds and soil are the backbones of every garden—without both, your plants won’t have a solid foundation to grow in, causing smaller harvests and less nutritionally dense fruits and vegetables. That’s why we always stress how important it is to invest in your garden and start off with high-quality materials from the beginning. As firm believers that good seeds equal a good garden, we’ve put together a variety of different packs to become your one-stop-shop for everything seed-related. Our collections include:

• Bountiful Harvest: This pack is the all-encompassing choice for those looking for a little bit of everything in their garden. With a variety of different fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers, you can grow something that everyone will enjoy!
• Juicing: Need some motivation to eat cleaner? These seeds will give you the PERFECT greens, veggies, and fruits to create homemade juices.
• Herbs: Filling your Garden Tower® with these high-quality seeds will keep your dishes tasting great all gardening season long.
• Early harvest/Cool weather:  You can plant these first for a quick harvest while waiting for your other seedlings to be ready to transplant.

Along with seeds, soil quality is crucial to your garden’s success. We recommend fluffy potting soil to ensure that your vertical vegetable garden will not become compact. Ask your local nursery for their “professional growers mix”—it’s high-quality and will let your plants thrive!

It’s Time to Start the Germination Process!

Starting Your Spring Seeds

Once you’ve selected your seeds and soil, there are only a few more things you’ll need for your most successful garden yet! These tools include:

• Seedling Heat Mat: with this gardening device, you can speed up the germination time by 1-3 weeks by heating root temperature to 10-20 degrees Fahrenheit above ambient temp.
• Marking Stakes: not only will these stakes keep your plants organized and identified, but they’re reusable and durable, too. With this 50 pack, you can label seedlings for your Garden Tower® for years to come.
• Seed Starting Greenhouse: this heavy-duty kit includes a dome and two starting trays to keep your seeds humid and warm.

Once you have all of these helpful accessories, it’s time to start growing! Place your soil and seeds into the greenhouse and watch them start to sprout. An extra tip we like to give is to make sure to clearly label your seedlings to ensure the best companion planting. Since everyone lives in different USDA hardiness zones and has different veggies they want to grow, we’ll leave the rest up to you—happy gardening!

No matter if you live in the hottest desert or the coldest mountainside, starting your seeds indoors is beneficial to those in every USDA hardiness zone. Between having stronger seedlings and saving money, you can’t go wrong! Ready to learn more about starting your own vertical vegetable garden? Visit Garden Tower Project™ today to learn more about our sustainable and convenient container.