How do I plant this?
What if someone gave you seeds their grandma saved or simply poured some out of a package they bought, how would you know how to plant them? Some of the packets you’ll find at Seedy Sunday are like the one on the right. How do you know how to plant those seeds?
Seeds from left to right are chard, kale, lettuce, sugar snap peas. Remember, if you don’t have planting instructions, plant seeds no deeper than the height of two seeds. (That’s why they’re lined up two high!)
google it
Your phone is one of your best garden tools. If you picked up a packet like the one on the right with no planting information, google it! Onion tells you the kind of plant. Evergreen bunching tells you these are small spring onions, and Nebuka is the variety. 2023 is the year the seeds were grown, and Seed Up is the company that sold them. Search for bunching onions or Nebuka to find out how to plant them.
seed catalogs
Paper and online seed catalogs provide all the information you need to know when and how to plant. The link in the google it section above is for High Mowing Organic Seeds. We also use Johnny’s Selected Seeds for growing information. Just click on the particular variety of vegetable or flower, and these sites will tell you how to grow it.
Look at this example for the boldor beet. The Germination Guide chart tells you the best soil temperature (around 86 degrees F) for getting this beet to sprout. The growing information tells you how to plant, common diseases, when to harvest, and more. Johnny’s also hosts a Grower’s Library with videos to help you grow.
look at the seeds
The size of the seed tells you how deep to plant them. Tiny seeds like the lettuce seeds in the above picture are planted just at the surface of the soil. The giant sugar snap pea seeds can be planted a half inch to an inch deep. The general rule is to plant seeds no deeper than two seeds deep. (That’s why there are two seeds in the picture above.)
Seeds contain a tiny amount of energy (that’s why we eat them!), and if they are planted too deep, they don’t have enough energy to reach the surface of the soil. Carrot and lettuce seeds are particularly tiny. If you’ve planted them before and not had a lot of success, they may have been planted too deep!
the planting guide for home gardening in Alabama
The Planting Guide for Home Gardening in Alabama is your cheat sheet for knowing when to plant things. It won’t tell you how deep or how far apart to plant your seeds (it will tell you how far apart to put your rows), but it will tell you when to plant them in the spring and fall.
This guide is for the whole state of Alabama. Mobile’s climate and Birmingham’s climate are both different from Montgomery. We can generally plant things a little earlier in the spring and a little later in the fall than the dates listed in the guide.