If you are tired of just reading catalogs and you're ready for some action, then you're probably thinking about starting seeds indoors.

But first, if it's cold where you are, you need to know the average date of the last spring frost in your area. For example, if you live in Rock Springs, Wyoming, your last frost date is June 11th, but if you live in Boston, it's May 3rd. In Fresno, it's April 1st, and in Baton Rouge, it's March 18th. In Fort Lauderdale (oh, the hardship!) the last frost date in spring is February 1st (while the first frost date in "fall" there is January 16th!).

How, you ask yourself, does she know all this? Simple: I entered 'last frost' in a search engine and hey presto! got directed to a site with links to every state, and the major cities therein. And so I educated myself. Who knew there was a 'first frost' date in Pasadena (February 3rd) or even that Chicago's first frost date had been moved up to April 25th (it used to be mid-May). Ouch. In Bozeman, Montana, it's June 19th; in Biloxi, it's March 18th. I love the internet. Or inter-tube. Whatever, those tiny librarians in my monitor can really look things up fast.

OK, so now you know your last frost date you can calculate when to sow your seeds. The seed catalogs are pretty good (they want you to succeed) at letting you know which seeds to start indoors and which to sow directly in the soil, which will grow reasonably well from seed, and which you should buy as plants (from them, of course). What they'll say is, "Plant indoors 10 weeks before last frost," (or 6 weeks or....) So you have to back it out, and you have to stagger your planting. This gives us maniac gardeners plenty to think about and do before the spring that we are promised actually will arrive again this year.

Before you order seeds, consider which plants really grow well when started indoors. Tomatoes, for example, are good to grow from seed, but lettuce and spinach, peas, radishes and peppers, you might as well either sow the seed directly into the soil (in the first 3) or start with plants (for the peppers).

Now's the time for me to ask you to let us all know what your experiences have been with starting plants from seed. Which ones have done best for you? What have you done right? Where have you had problems? What are your favorite catalogs or websites? Our pooled experience is worth a lot more than my blogging.

So, let's say you want a mix of vegetables and annuals (while there are some perennials worth growing from seed, such as columbine and rudbeckia, most perennials take so long to develop that I at least get frustrated and just go buy them as plants. That said, take a look at what's self-seeding itself in your garden or your friends' and family's gardens, and you can figure those are plants that will do well from seed.

Among the annuals that I think do best from seed sown indoors are marigolds, morning glories, and zinnias. For veggies, I've had success with eggplant and tomatoes.

To germinate, seeds need water, heat, soil, and light. There are dozens of systems you can buy to start seeds, and catalogs and online sites will help you think about which is right for you at this point, probably before they've shown up in the local supermarket or drug store. You can get peat pellets, peat pots plastic pots, trays, you can even make your own pots from newspaper with a 'pot maker' available in catalogs. I like the peat pots because they're so easy to transplant. You can buy them in as pellets, moisten them, and they 'grow.' Or you can get them empty and fill them with your choice of growing medium.

You want a good seed-starting medium, or soil. Don't just use soil from the garden, because it won't have the proper tilth, or texture, for starting seeds (at least not now it won't) and you can't guarantee that there won't be fungi in the soil. You can start seeds in peat moss, or a mix of peat moss and vermiculite. You can buy high quality germinating mixes through catalogs or garden centers.

Be sure to check if your seeds need to be soaked before they will germinate. I know this is true of morning glory seeds.

Soak the growing medium thoroughly before you plant. Water is what triggers germination in seeds, so you want the seeds to have plenty of access to water. Leave a quarter inch open on the surface, plant your seeds, press them into the medium, and then cover them with a light layer of soil. Mist them so the surface is moist. Cover them with plastic wrap, glass, or a dome, depending on how high tech you want to get. This will help conserve moisture (if it's cold where you are, your house is probably dry too.) It's best if you can set your pots in another tray so you can water them from the bottom. A cookie tin under the pots will do provided it has some sides to keep the water in. Now's also a good time to label your seeds!

Now's when the new equipment can be so helpful. While some people just pop their seeds in a basement window and wait, the lower temperatures of a basement can impede germination. There are seedling heat mats you can buy that will raise the temperature 10 – 20 degrees and speed the process. You can also get rigs for fluorescent lamps/grow lights so that you can keep the lights a few inches above the top leaves, raising the lamp as the plants grow. This way your plants won't get all leggy searching for sun before you transplant them.

Remove the plastic/dome/glass once the plants have their first leaves, but continue to mist them and water, if possible, from the bottom.

If you've started seeds in small peat pots, you're probably going to skip the next step, but if you sowed a lot of seeds in large flats, you will want to transplant them after the plants develop a second set of real leaves, so their roots have more room to grow. Get your pots ready with soil mix, moisten them, and use your finger or a pencil to carve out a hole in the soil. Dislodge the seedlings with a fork or a stick, or, if the soil mix is loose enough, you can simply lift them out by the leaves. Don't try holding on to the little stems, because they're too weak. Take the plant by a new leaf and dangle the roots into the hole. Then just fill with more mix, water from the bottom, and replace them under the lights.

When the conditions are right for transplanting, prepare the soil first then bring out your little seedlings. If they're planted in peat pots, it's a good idea to take a knife and score the sides of the pots, remove the bottom and any top part that's above the soil level, and then place the plant in the soil. If you have a cold frame, you can begin bringing the pots out before the last frost date, opening the top of your cold frame for a few sunny hours at the beginning, increasing to more and more air time, until the frost date has passed and it's time to transplant.

OK, now it's your turn: what seeds have you had most success with? What tricks can you share? What have been your problems?

I hope you'll visit my website, view link and I'm also hoping someone out there will read my new book, Out of the Shadow: Ecopsychology, Story, and Encounters with the Land, available at fine online booksellers or from the publisher, University of Virginia Press.

Happy garden dreaming!