Starting seeds for my spring gardening

[willburrrr2003]

Good Morning Everyone, I am starting my seeds today in my little propagation dome. I have room for 48 starts. I'm thinking of starting spinach, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, pak choi, mesclun mix (spicy leafy salad mix), Celery, Broccoli, and cauliflower. These are all my cooler weather plants that I would like to get a jump on. Once these can go out in my raised bed, I will transplant them, and plant a section of seeds for each of the above as well. I believe staging like this will help having the various plants producing longer in staged groups. Once these are out I will be starting my warmer weather seeds indoors. Any advice on getting my seeds to germinate would be fantastic. My setup is a propagation dome, with egg cartons to plant in. I can separate them, and plant them seed cup and all when ready to transplant. I will take and post pics later today when I start playing in my dirt lol

Regards,

Will R.

Seattle WA.

[Peter1142]

I tried this year doing direct sow of early carrots and lettuce under plastic cover with hoops in my raised bed. Hopefully this will get them going much faster. I will have to switch out the plastic next week when it gets warm (> 60F). People do start lettuce indoors but I have never tried it... I have limited space for that.

I have read spinach has a taproot and transplants poorly. I direct sowed mine last weekend. I am expecting it to come up as soon as the ground thaws and warms a little for a couple weeks.

My brassicas (broccoli and cauliflower, and trying Hestia Brussels sprouts for a spring sowing,) are up and running nice and early this year. Next week I will start a second sowing of broccoli and my cabbage. They germinate fast and without difficulty, but require grow lights very close to them from day 1 or they will get so leggy they will die.

[rainbowgardener]

I looked back and found that you are in Seattle. It would be nice if you would change your profile so that would show and save us doing the search.

You are about a week or so from your average last frost date and in fact given a very warm year are probably already past your last frost.

". I have room for 48 starts. I'm thinking of starting spinach, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, pak choi, mesclun mix (spicy leafy salad mix), Celery, Broccoli, and cauliflower."

You are a little late to be planting all this cold season stuff, especially indoors. In a colder zone than yours (when I was in zone 6) and with a month later average last frost date, I started cauliflower, broccoli, celery indoors in late January. Honestly I would skip them at this point. Plant your spinach and other green leafies in the ground, outside, YESTERDAY!! They do better direct sown where they will grow anyway.

Start your warm weather stuff indoors now. With a mid-April last frost date, I started pepper seed indoors early February and tomatoes indoors mid to later Feb. So you are already a little behind on these, but still workable.

Also, be very careful with your dome. I don't use them. Seeds sprout just fine without them, if kept moist. Once the seedlings sprout, you have to remove the dome right away or the seedlings will be killed by the excess humidity and lack of air circulation (perfect conditions for the damping off fungus to which seedlings are very vulnerable.)

[jal_ut]

Plant all that cool weather stuff direct seeded, out on the garden, full sun , where it will grow. You pre-start things like tomatoes and peppers.

[Peter1142]

Yeah, 1 week from LFD, the other posts are right -- direct seed the cool stuff now and start your transplants yesterday.

But... Google reveals last frost dates for Seattle from April 7th - 20th. When is the LFD?

[Taiji]

I'm only just now starting my brassicas indoors. I realize I made a mistake, I should have started them in January because of the warm year. I could actually put them out now. Too bad. I do the same thing every year it seems, so that they're maturing in the hot weather. Sigh! When will I ever learn?!

[Peter1142]

Some varieties of broccoli and cabbage do well in warm weather. You could look for those seeds. Johnny's has excellent charts of individual variety tolerances.

[Taiji]

Some varieties of broccoli and cabbage do well in warm weather. You could look for those seeds. Johnny's has excellent charts of individual variety tolerances.

Sounds good. Thx.

[rainbowgardener]

This is where I got the average last frost date:

https://www.plantmaps.com/interactive-wa ... te-map.php

it says Seattle Mar 11-Mar 20. I don't live there, so I don't know....

Either way, I think it is late for starting cool weather crops, except to put spinach, lettuce, etc in the ground. Seattle having very cool summers it should do fine. Lettuce and spinach are done when temps get in the 80's, but Seattle doesn't generally have a lot of that.

[imafan26]

I can grow Green Comet, Italian Green Sprouting, and De Cicco in Hawaii. I planted my broccoli late this year because of the snails eating the early seedlings. I planted December 12. I am hoping they will start budding soon. I try to plant them in late July or August that way they are producing around November.

[Peter1142]

Rainbowgardener has a point, in Seattle is the climate where they grow these things without issue pretty much all summer long I think? So while it is late, it shouldn't really be an issue.

[imafan26]

What might be an issue is the crucifer quarantine. Washington does not have the disease but Oregon and Idaho does so it depends on where your seeds come from or if there is a no grow zone.

https://agr.wa.gov/Inspection/SeedInspec ... et-Web.pdf