Well, here we are. It’s the last week of March. March Madness is not only a collegiate thing, it’s a gardening thing too. If you flip to any one of my seasonal sowing charts in my book, you’ll see how heavily-weighted March is, not only for vegetables, but also for flowers.

Direct Seeding

I’m amazed at how early I now sow seeds directly into the garden under the protection of our season extending tunnels and cold frame. Even just five years ago I wasn’t sowing or transplanting anything before the end of March. Now I have germination of direct-seeded, cold hardy crops before the Vernal Equinox. These seeds will go on to nourish us in April and May, before our last frost! Before my tomatoes are transplanted. Before my cucumbers are seeded, and before our blueberries have set fruit. It’s all so incredible, and honestly, quite simple.

I’m sowing these under cover, both in our cold frame and in our low tunnel. The low tunnel with its increased mass and more sun exposure has warmer temperatures than the cold frame, but anything that is providing protection while expediting soil warmth will do. But I want to empower you to consider direct seeding things like cabbage and broccoli, even if you usually indoor sow them. Yes, you can do that too, perhaps a side by side if it feels too risky to direct seed it all or if your environment makes direct seeding challenging from local fauna or pest pressure. But keep direct seeding these crops in your mind, and when you’re ready and the soil’s warm enough (45-50F minimum), I’ll be cheering you on.

Choose from any of these seeds to get a jump start on the growing season:

• Arugula
• Cilantro
• Radish
• Scallions/green onions
• Bok choy
• Pac Choi
• Tatsoi
• Kale
• Cabbage
• Kohlrabi
• Broccoli
• Broccoli raab
• Mustard greens

If you don’t want the hassle — trust me, I get it! — then just pencil these seeds into your calendar for 2-3 weeks before your last frost. Use a meat thermometer to probe the soil. You want soils to be at least 45F but ideally over 50F for faster germination. They can germinate in soil as cool as 40F, but it will take longer. With the sun returning north, every week our ground is warming and thawing, even without cover. Hope is on the way!

Sowing Indoors: Vegetables

Alliums

I’ve been chatting up my onion seedlings already, but now it’s really true: If you want to indoor sow onions, leeks, or shallots, it’s call time for you! I still haven’t sowed any shallots, so between soil block trays I’ll be tossing some seeds into a few 4″ pots this week too.

Beets

I’ll be doing my sowing of beets this weekend. These will get interplanted in between some of my brassicas under cover in mid-April I’m guessing. If I was more organized, they would have been seeded last weekend. I rely on having beets by mid-June annually, so will be a good test to those sowing times and if there’s flexibility in starting them later and yielding the same early harvest.

Lettuce

As you may know, I am a head lettuce zealot. I really love the crisp, watery crunch of a romaine or iceberg, and that’s 90% of what we grow. I also love how beautiful head lettuce grows up planted in blocks under trellises and between my broccoli. It’s as much fun to interplant as it is to enjoy on our plates. This can be indoor sowed anytime now, and it’s quite frost hardy so even a mid to late April transplanting without cover should weather those last few dips in temperature without any issues.

Fennel

One of my very favorite vegetables to grow, bulb fennel is highly ornamental and such a unique vegetable to cook with. Admittedly we only do a few different things with it, but I just love watching it grow in the garden. More information on growing fennel coming soon to the blog too, if this is a vegetable you’re curious about growing. I plan to put it in the same tray as the beets and lettuce.

Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplants

I haven’t started a single nightshade yet (the plant family that includes tomatoes, peppers and onions). If you’re in zone 4 or 5, getting tomatoes seeded in the next 2 weeks is a good idea. But, wait. You can wait until mid-April too. As you’ll see with me, I am going on year 2 of direct seeding ALL my paste tomatoes, the ones I need for summer canning.

Eggplants are a little slower to get going, as are some peppers, so they will get seeded by the weekend. And I will direct seed a few more bell peppers this spring in our cold frame to continue that long-term experiment to try and direct seed as many crops as I can.

Celery

We’re nearing the closing window for early summer celery. So if you’re heart is set on some celery by July, get sowing! Be sure to follow my advice in my grow guide.

Honorable Mentions

There are lots of vegetables that don’t make my grow list, but that you might enjoy growing. Swiss chard comes to mind, and when I was digging through my seeds I thought, if I LIKED swiss chard, now would be a great time to sow it!

Also brassicas, Asian greens, and slow to establish herbs remain a great option for seed starting now too. This includes thyme, marjoram, lemongrass, cilantro (for us I sowed it to harvest indoors in April), and parsley. Parsley and cilantro have the distinct advantage of being cool tolerant so can get planted out early too.

Indoor sowing a flat of brassicas now and transplanting them in late April is an excellent plan for bulking up your early summer harvests. I might drop a few more broccoli seeds in one of my trays today to keep the broccoli train flowing.

Sowing Indoors: Flowers

Because of our July 8 garden tour, I really have flowers on the brain. I want as many different flowers in bloom for that tour, and that means that I’ll probably be sowing some of my flowers earlier than usual and in larger pots to accomodate more indoor time. This is likely to include my prized zinnia, which I am considering doing in 2” soil blocks on April 1.

But for this weekend, here are the flowers I’m planning to sow indoors, all in 2” soil blocks:

• Gomphrena (globe amaranth): Raspberry Cream, Purple-Red, Audray White, QIS Pink and QIS Carmine
• Tithonia (Mexican torch sunflower)
• Dahlia (Siskiyou Seed)
• Strawflower: Seashells Mix, Silvery Rose, and Cranberry Rose
• Snapdragon, Orange Wonder and Black Prince
• Poppies (I cannot get them to germinate direct-seeded so I’m taking extreme measures this year and sowing indoors…to be continued): Elka White and Hungarian Blue
• Sesame (I’ll succession plant this, so some now, some again in mid-April)

What I’m Not Sowing Yet

I’m holding off on indoor sowing any tomatillos, squash, cucamelons, peanuts, cucumbers, melons, or brussels sprouts.

Resist the urge to sow warm season spices like cumin, nigella, or fenugreek. I’m going to try direct seeding ALL of these this spring.

I’m not ready to sow zinnia, cosmos, marigolds, nasturtiums, or my main season alyssum. Those won’t be for another 3 weeks or so. So for now, things are manageable indoors, but in 4 weeks time it’s going to be a rightful nursery in here, and I won’t be mad about it.