Want to Start Garden Seeds Inside?

Tomato seedlings

Have you been thinking about getting a head start on summer 2011 gardening by starting veggie, herb, or flower seeds inside?


The University of Maryland Extension’s Grow It Eat It (GIEI) program has just posted how-to-do-it information to help you: a series of five articles and five videos.


The text series is called “Starting Seeds Indoors.” The five parts are: (1) Getting Started; (2) Containers and Growing Medium; (3) Plant the Seeds of Your Success; (4) Transplant Care; and (5) Hardening—Getting Transplants Ready for Outdoors.


The video series features Kent Phillips, a Howard County Master Gardener, who shows how he starts seeds under lights in his basement. The five parts (with time) are: (1) Timeline (2:06); (2) Materials (3:34); (3) Planting (4:53); (4) Care of Seedlings (2:45); and (5) Transplanting (2:27).


If you are a first-time seed starter, I recommend you read the text series and then look at the video series. The text will give you more comprehensive basic information, and the videos will show you how to put that information to work growing plants for your summer garden.


I’ll post a link to the GIEI website at the end of this posting. For the print series, when you get to the GIEI home page, look for the “Grow It” section at the top of the left column. Click on “Starting Seeds Indoors,” and then you will be able to click on each posting in the series. For the video series, look for the second section of entries, “Get Resources,” in the left column, and click on “Videos.” The seed-starting series tops the list.


Ready to start? To go to the GIEI website, CLICK HERE.