seed starting

Start your own plants … soon

Why start seeds indoors?

There are certainly plenty of vegetables and flowers you can direct-sow in your garden. However, for those of us who live in the Northern US and like warm-weather crops, many of our favorite plants to grow— and eat —require too many weeks of both warmth and long daylight to wait to sow until after frost. And for those of you who have been buying plants, starting your own seeds can both save you money and allow you to control which varieties you plant.

It's only the beginning of August, but time is wasting for sowing seeds now to harvest greens and other vegetables up to—and after—frost. Below is a customized version of a useful calculator provided by Johnny's Selected Seeds available here. We've customized it for Evanston, broken out the seed starting and planting out dates, and then sorted it by seed starting date.