I have been looking forward to this day for over 5 weeks. Mainly because that is when I planted the seeds for the starts that I put out yesterday. They grew wonderfully using a simple light system (see post). Not only was I able to get an early start, but each plant cost me about $.20 between seeds, soil and peat pots. That is a lot better than $1-3 for starts in the store.

I planted broccoli, cauliflower, head lettuce, romaine lettuce, spinach, swiss chard, and onions. The broccoli, cauliflower, and head lettuce are more of an experiment since they don’t do as well in the Spring as they do in the Fall. I have already seeded carrots and peas.

Note: I planted some seeds I didn’t use for starts at the same time out in the garden to compare with my indoor starts. Obviously they didn’t grow as well, but I wanted to know how much of a disparity there would be. The results were significant. With each vegetable that I planted in the garden, they were barely even up with seed leaves while my starts were 3-4 inches tall with 4-6 true leaves and an established root system.

This is highly significant for anyone trying to get Spring crops out of crops such as head lettuce, broccoli and cauliflower. These crops will “bolt” when it gets to hot, therefore, unless you get a jump on the season by using starts, you pretty much don’t have a chance in Utah by direct seeding in the Spring. You should do well in the Fall though.

For anyone looking for information on spacing, thinning, watering requirements and such please refer to the planting guides or read some of my other posts.

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