Spring Garden Seed Starting Prep

In today’s video, I’m sharing my thoughts on what you need to do now to prepare for the spring garden. I’ll also show you where to buy seeds for your garden by sharing my favorite seed companies! I’ll show you my seed starting setup and the items I use for successfully growing vegetables and flowers from seed.

If you have questions about where to buy vegetable seeds for your garden, need help growing a vegetable garden, want tips for gardening for beginners, are looking for more gardening tips and tricks and “garden hacks” like this, have questions about vegetable gardening and organic gardening in general, or want to share some DIY and “how to” garden tips and gardening hacks of your own, please ask in the comment section below!

MENTIONED LINKS & PRODUCTS

Worksheet Download: http://www.nextlevelgardening.tv
Budget Grow Light Video: https://youtu.be/1l3Gfc3A4ok?si=xNXeBKylcYTUeF4O

Seed (Photo) Storage totes: https://amzn.to/3tR96XN
Heat Mat (Small): https://amzn.to/3vzTybu
Heat Mat (Large): https://amzn.to/3O0y1iB

Moisture Controlled Seed Tray: https://bit.ly/47CdQhI

SEED COMPANIES
https://www.bluepumpkinseedco.com
https://www.rareseeds.com (Baker Creek)
https://www.burpee.com
https://www.johnnyseeds.com
https://www.selectseeds.com

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Hey Guys, I’m Brian from Next Level Gardening

Welcome to our online community! A place to be educated, inspired and hopefully entertained at the same time! A place where you can learn to grow your own food and become a better organic gardener. At the same time, a place to grow the beauty around you and stretch that imagination (that sometimes lies dormant, deep inside) through gardening.

I’m so glad you’re here!

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PRODUCTS I USE AND LOVE: https://www.nextlevelgardening.tv/products-i-love

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Hey guys I’m Brian and welcome to the 2024 season of Next Level gardening let me know in the comments where you’re from and how many years you’ve been gardening if this is your first year gardening definitely let us know that too and I want to let you know if you’re

New to gardening your life’s about to change for the better and those of you who been gardening for a while you know that’s true in this video I’m going to be talking about how I get the season going starting with seeds now it’s too early to start seeds in most places I

Know I know it’s tough to wait but you really need to wait for the right time and I’m going to talk to you about when that is in a bit but other than a really nice day like today happens to be January is a great time to be indoors by

A fire watching it rain or snow outside grabbing a cup of coffee and going through all of the amazing seed cataloges or reading a favorite Garden book it’s a time for dreaming and planning not getting frustrated with pests and summer humidity so the first thing I suggest that you do is go

Through your seeds to see what you have hopefully they’re all in one place and not scattered everywhere I mean who would do that so I’ve got mine here in these trusty totes um these have been the best kind of storage system I’ve ever found for seeds I’ll link these

Down below I just got them on Amazon and then last minute I also found a package and a bag what you’re going to find on every seed package because it’s a legal thing they have to do is a date stamped on it now this is not an expiration date

This is the year they were packed for and it has nothing to do with how long seeds will last seeds last a really long time if you keep them cool and dry they can last for years um maybe after four or five years you’ll start to get a

Little bit of degradation in the germination rate but then you just got to plant two per cell or per place and you’ll at least get one of the two to sprout the only deviation from that rule are pelleted seeds and that’s really small seeds that they coat in like

Little bit of clay so they’re like little clay balls when you pour them out of the seed packet really tiny clay balls but bigger than the seed themselves and those do start to degrade after the first year so with pelleted seeds it’s best to use them the first

Year you get them second year is probably still okay but you will probably get a little bit of degradation in germination rate the second thing you’re going to want to do is look at your journal or video that I told you to film back in the fall at the end of your

Summer season when everything was right up here fresh in your mind cuz if you’re anything like me right now it’s not so fresh what worked what didn’t work things you planted too much of and things you didn’t plant enough of all that information is great to have when

You’re going through looking for seeds once you’ve gone through your notes make a list of seeds you want to grow this year go through your seed cataloges I have a couple or you can go online and to online seed catalogs and either browse through this there or request a

Free printed catalog get sent to you in the mail try to hold back from ordering everything I’m always asked where I get my seeds now I’m not sponsored by any Seed Company I don’t own a seed company if you’re looking for Heirloom Seeds then nothing beats Baker Creek they have

Thousands and thousands of just every kind of heirloom seed you could think of for every type of plant mostly vegetables but they have herbs and ornamentals as well I also buy from Johnny’s burpees and uh for flowers like perennials and annuals I do a lot with um select seeds there’s a small company

That I’ve been getting seeds from for the past few years mostly uh all of the different varieties of pumpkins and squash that I grow but they’re actually expanding into a whole range of really unique selections if you like supporting small family run businesses definitely give blue pumpkin seeds a try and I’ll

Put links to all these down in the video description there are are three categories of seeds U and I get questions on this every year so it’s worth repeating every year so the categories are GMO heirloom SL open-pollinated and hybrids and then you’ve got a subsection of organic versus non-organic there’s no difference

In my opinion between organic and non-organic seeds if you take a non-organic seed and grow it organically to produce the next crop you can still consider that you grew your vegetables organically that being said if I have the choice between organic and non-organic I’m always going to pick the

Organic because I want to support organic Growers but if I’m looking for a specific variety and I only find it in non-organic seeds you better believe I’m buying it as far as GMO seeds those are for commercial Growers they’re very expensive and they’re very controlled you’re not going to accidentally come

Home with a packet of GMO seeds from Dollar Tree a lot of seed companies now are advertising non-GMO seeds in their cataloges on their packages um they kind of have to do that because people think that they can get access somehow to GMO seeds and so they put that out there

Just to let them know hey we don’t have that even though nobody does it’s just kind of marketing the next category are hybrids now hybrids are totally different from GMO hybrids happen naturally every single year in your garden because of pollinators because of wind but they can also be made in a

Greenhouse in a professional environment where detailed records are kept on the parentage of dir of certain plants and then Crossing those plants to get a desired outcome hybrids are actually some of the easiest seeds to grow because they’re bred for that so if you get mildew on your squash just get a

Mildew resistant hybrid oo if you get rust on your beans just get a rust resistant hybrid I grew a lot of hybrids last year and had really great results the only downside to a hybrid uh is that you cannot save those seeds and have them

Come true next year so if I grow a sungold tomato one of my favorite Tomatoes uh it is an F1 hybrid meaning if I saved those seeds and planted them I’m not going to get sungold tomatoes I’m going to get some variation of both of the parents of that sun gold and it

Could be good and it could be not so great you’re going to get fruit from it it’s just not going to be the exact one you planted on the other hand heirloom or open pollinated seeds are seeds that do come true if you save them and plant

Them again next year so a Kellogg’s breakfast tomato is an heirloom tomato it’s my favorite yellow tomato and I can save the seeds from that and plant them again next year and guess what I’m I’m going to either get a Kellogg’s breakfast tomato or something very very close where you wouldn’t really even

Know the difference so that’s called open pollinated they can be pollinated in the garden by bees and then you can take those seeds grow them again and get the same thing an heirloom is an open pollinated seed but it just happens to have been around for a really long time

And a lot of times has a story to go along with it so order your seeds soon because they sell out really quickly I would like to make the case for starting your vegetables and flowers from seed uh a you’re going to get a much wider range

Of varieties of things that you can grow especially if you go the heirloom route I mean there’s thousands of things you can grow if you go to the garden center and get transplants you’re really only limited to maybe two varieties of each thing B right now with inflation you

Want to save money wherever you can save money and growing your vegetables from seed is way cheaper we’ve got a visitor here I’m filming I’m I’m filming and starting your vegetables from seed is way cheaper than buying garden center transplants while we’re talking about saving money I’m going to be starting a

Brand new series building a vegetable garden from scratch on a budget right up here in The Cottage Garden I’m only going to spend money where it’s absolutely necessary and even that it’s going to be almost nothing so if you’re interested make sure you hit subscribe and click the bell for notifications so

You will get a reminder on February 4th when that series begins while I’m plugging things that are cheap tomorrow on this channel I’m going to be doing a winter sewing video it’s really the cheapest and easiest way that you can start things from seed so don’t miss that right about now you’re probably

Wondering okay but when can I start sewing seeds and I hope it’s soon it’s different for everybody the way you find out is is just go on to Google and Google your ZIP code or town community uh and last frost date and it’s going to tell you what date you can expect your

Last frost date then what you can do is go to my website go to downloads and download the worksheet that we have there it’s either a digital or a printable version and all you have to do is put in your last frost date and it’s going to automatically calculate for you

When you can sew the seeds indoors and plant them Outdoors all of your favorite crops that you want to grow I’m going to be doing many seed starting videos with you over the next few months and other than the gardening on a budget series they’re all going to be using the same

Items I’m in the process of setting up our seed starting station here in the garage nothing fancy it’s just our old kitchen table so other than a table there are a few items I would recommend to help you with starting seeds indoors number one are heat mats and there’s several different sizes

Um but basically what they do is they raise the ambient temperature under the seed tray to about 75° or I would recommend getting one with a thermometer and thermostat and what that does is that speeds germination and a lot of your summer crops like tomatoes eggplant um Peppers squash they all like that

Bottom heat and I can get tomatoes to germinate within 2 or 3 days with a heat mat so it’s very helpful in fact starting Peppers indoor early it’s almost a necessity they’re not very expensive though they’re actually very affordable another thing would be an old oscillating fan again nothing fancy what

This does is it keeps the top of the soil dry and so that prevents damping off which is a disease if you ever had seedlings that kind of look pinched at the bottom and fall over dead that’s damping off it also helps prevent fungus knats um but one thing that it does

That’s really great is it strengthens the seedling so as they’re blowing in the breeze they’re kind of getting a workout so that when they are taken out of this nice comfortable secure location and put out in the cruel world in the garden they’re going to do a lot better

Because they are stronger then you need something to grow in you can use recycled plastic cups recycled or reuse uh old six-packs from garden centers take out containers anything that will hold soil and has drainage in the bottom I started using these a couple couple years ago and will never go back they

Aren’t free but they will last for years and they were an absolute game Cher for me and it comes with this little stand this stands above the water level and keeps the seed tray above that level so they’re not just constantly soaking in a swamp and then this is a wicking

Mat and part of it hangs down into the water that water through capillary action is wicked into this mat and then as this sits on top of it the potting mix in the in this tray is touching that wicking mat so it Wicks it up into the potting potting mix so

You never have to water all you have to do is just make sure that there’s water in here I will leave a link below to that product if you want to give them a try as far as growing medium uh any indoor potting soil or uh seed starting

Mix will work you basically want something that’s been sterilized and both of those have been and that prevents any kind of disease or fungus Gat eggs from surviving H to re we reawaken here on your seed starting table the last thing they need is sunlight now if you have a south facing

Window that gets 6 to8 hours of direct light like you’re sitting in there and all all of those 6 to8 hours you’re going to get hot because it’s directly pouring through that window if that’s the case and you have that that’s great you can start your seeds there if you

Don’t then you’re going to need to invest in some sort of a grow light now don’t let that scare you check this video right here it’s going to give you so many options of grow lights in your budget now you know what to get together

To start seeds indoors so we can do it together in a couple weeks I’ll see you next time