How to Grow Garden Seeds and How to Start

Seeds to sow now.

Yep, believe it or not it's that time again, get sowing your seeds for your blooms later in the year.

I always find myself looking outside and thinking how on earth can seeds grow when the sun is so low and the weather so cold.

If you have a greenhouse or like me a suntop you have the ideal gardening facilities to start growing some of your seeds now, those of which I will list for you in a moment.

If however you don't have either of the above then a warm windowsill or two will enable you to get started.

You will be amazed at the rewards that you get from growing your own. Not only is it cheaper but because you put the effort in, when the seedlings spring up into the daylight above the compost it's such a rewarding moment, reason being you are the one that has done all of the work yourself and you will reap the benefits.

Although you can get a good success rate on the windowsill you can't sow as many seeds as you really would like too, with a greenhouse you have lot's of space for storage and you have lots of bench space for your plants to grow happily on.

There is such a great variety to choose from all needing to be sown from the start of February and throughout the Spring and some you can even sow in the Summer if the packet states that it is ok to do so.

You have a choice of Vegetables, Herbs or Flowers all of which I will provide the names for you of the successful varieties that I have hand sown and achieved beautiful flowers for.

Seeds for flowers, these seeds can be planted out when the frost's have stopped coming so it is a must to keep an eye on the weather forecast!

• Antirrhinum - Pink, red, white yellow flowe rs
• Begonia - Pink, red, white flowers
• Callistephus - Lavender, pink, purple and white flowers
• Dahlia - Pink, red, yellow flowers
• Impatiens - Pink red, yellow flowers
• Lobelia - Blue, pink, red, white flowers
• Nemesia - Orange, pink, red, yellow flowers
• Nicotiana - Green, pink, red, white flowers
• Pelargonium - Pink, red, pinky, white flowers
• Rudbeckia - Orange, red, yellow flowers
• Salvia - Pink, purple, red, white flowers
• Tagetes - Orange, red, rust, white flowers
• Verbena - Apricot, pink, purple, red flowers
• Zinnia - Green, pink, purple, red, yellow flowers

These are just some of the seeds that I have successfully grown in a suntop or before I got my suntop on the windowsills throughout the house.

Now, once you have purchased your seeds read my other hub on how to sow seeds to get the results that I have had previously, although that said I cannot guarantee results I can only give you my experience and knowledge on how I achieve the result and hopefully it will work for you too!

Onto Hardy annuals - these seeds can be sown outside straight into the ground in March and April (I'll explain in a future hub how best this is achieved in my book).

Alyssum - Lavender, pink, white, flowers

Calendula - Orange, beigy, yellow, flowers

Centaurea - Blue, pink, red, white, flowers

Chrysanthemum - Pink, red, white, flowers

Clarkia - Pink, purple, red, white, flowers

Convolvulus - Blue, pink, white, flowers

Delphinium - Blue, pink, red, white, flowers

Eschschoitzia - Orange, red, yellow, flowers

Godetia - Pink, red, white, flowers

Lavetera - Lavender, pink, white, flowers

Linum - Blue, pink, red, flowers

Matthiola - Lavender, pink, purple, white, flowers

Mimulus - Pink, red, yellow, flowers

Nigella - Blue, pink, white, flowers

Again, these are just a few of a variety of seeds that I have grown successfully.

Make sure before you even contemplate starting to sow your seeds that you have everything at hand, there is nothing worse than having dirty hands and then having to find your lollipop sticks and marker pen for labeling only to make them really grubby. This doesn't look very good and you want your trays and the labeling to look good once your little price plants start to grow.

Also make sure that you have enough plastic pots or trays washed and ready to go, you don't want to be using dirty trays as this will not help you to get the best from the seeds that you are sowing.

And you need to make sure you have a watering can at hand so that you can make sure your compost is wet on the surface before sowing, allow time for the water to drain through before you sow and then cover with a little more compost and water a little more before covering with cling film, marking up and putting in it's place to start to grow.

I love growing my own vegetables from seed, I have had a go at growing most varieties of vegetable however the easiest I have ever grown has got to be courgettes, that said some tomato varieties are just as easy.

Here are a few seeds to get in ready for the end of February (hopefully it will be a little warmer by then, that's in the uk I mean) when you can then move onto my next hub on sowing your seeds.

Sweet Peppers

Broad Beans

Carrots

Beetroot

Tomatoes (whatever variety takes your fancy in the picture on the packet, although remember you can grown small tomatoes in small pots which look really attractive, the others such as Alicante take up a lot of room)

Celariac

Lettuce

Swede

Parsnip

Turnip

Courgettes

Dwarf French Beans

Marrows

Radishes

Spring Onions

These are just some of the seeds that I have grown into lovely vegetables.

It is worth remembering when we start to sow the seeds that you need to think of the space you have in your garden to grow the seedlings on once they are big enough and the weather warm enough, it can be so easy to want to grow all of the varieties and then realise that you really haven't got the space. That said, these days a lot of the vegetables can be grown in tubs or large pots, we will look at this later on in one of my other hubs that will be grouped with this one.

I love growing herbs, not only are they quite easy, mmmm, let's say some are quite easy to grow, but the ones that you do grow, look so lovely and smell so delicious too. As most people know herbs can be used in a variety of dishes when cooking so these that I have selected are worth while purchasing.

Basil (may be worth waiting until the end of March to sow these, however best to get them now)

Chives

Marjoram

Mint

Parsley

Thyme

Dill

Rosemary

Sage

Oregano

These are all my favourites and I have been lucky enough to be able to grow them from seed, with a little tlc (forgive the pun!) it's surprising what you can achieve.

Basil can be a problem, for some reason if you don't get the timings completely right then you can fail miserably, I always use the guidelines on the packet for basil.



Ok, so there you have it my complete list of seeds that I will be showing you and guiding you through sowing in my next hub.

You should be able to get all of the ones that I have listed for you now, but one word of warning every store you go to will charge differently so hunt around it really is worth it because seeds this year have become extremely expensive.

Happy shopping!