How Early Can You Start Seedlings Indoors?

[Melissa569]

I live in California, near San Francisco. Last scheduled frost for my area is March. I've always been told to start my seeds indoors, 6-8 weeks before the last frost. So that would be January, I guess. But can I do it even further back, so that they will be more developed by the time March rolls around? Like say... November or December? I'm trying to get earlier harvests.

[Kisal]

I would say yes, as long as you can provide sufficient light to enable them to develop into compact, sturdy plants. Even then, however, transplanting an older plant might shock it to the point that flowering is delayed. Once it does flower, you might have to hand pollenate them, depending on the presence of pollenating insects that are active when you move the plants outdoors.

I say this because of the experience I had this year. I wasn't able to get my tomato plants in as early as I usually do. I ended up with older plants that were already in flower. I don't know whether it was because they were older plants, or because the conditions in my yard weren't the same as at the nursery where they were grown, but the plants dropped all their flowers. They are flowering again, so I know I'll have plenty of tomatoes.

[123penguins]

I live in an area in which it is not wise to put plants outside until early June due to the chance of a sudden late frost. I started my plants inside in late January last year. The biggest issue I found was that you have to give them plenty of room to avoid root bind. I ended up transplanting into larger pots 3 times to keep ahead of the roots.