A couple of blogs ago I wrote about starting plants from seed, and as the winter wears on, it begins to seem more possible to think about soil and plants and being outside. I've been asked to write about starting veggies from seeds, so here goes!

The first time you plant a vegetable bed, it's worth digging or tilling the soil to 6-8 inches deep and working in some organic matter, compost, aged manure, worm castings. You may want to do a soil test first; your state agricultural extension service will have information on how and where you can get one done. Ideally, you want a pH of 6.0 – 7.0 for veggies.

Choose a location where you can get water to the crops easily, in full sun (8-10 hours/day) and as far away as possible from tree and shrub roots. A raised bed, if it's an option for you, may give you better aeration and drainage and an earlier warming. The weeding and harvesting may be easier too. But don't use treated lumber in a veggie garden. It's usually treated with arsenic, which can leach into the soil.

And if you're gardening on a deck or balcony, a large container will work just fine for most non-root crops. Even root crops can be grown in containers, but you need to make sure you're not crowding the roots.

Once you've got a good vegetable bed established, in the following years there's no need to till; just add organic material, such as grass clippings and fall leaves, and over the winter the soil will get richer and richer.

I'm in the middle of reading Barbara Kingsolver's new book, Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. It's really good, definitely worth a read. One things she suggests that I think is very helpful is to think about the array of vegetables in terms of the life cycle of an annual plant. Most veggies are annuals, so it mostly works.

Plants store energy and genetic directions in their seeds, so when you plant a seed, you're planting last year's stored material. The seed germinates and sends up a tender shoot and some leaves and, eventually, some buds. These early leaves are the edible part of the earliest spring vegetables: lettuce, chard, spinach, and the buds give us broccoli and asparagus. These early crops can be sown directly into the ground once you can work the soil at all. Plant them 4-6 weeks before the average frost free date in your area (you can get that date by searching online for 'frost free date' and your location). Cool season crops include broccoli, cabbage, Chinese cabbage, chives, collards, kale, kohlrabi, lettuce mustard, onion, parsley, peas, radish (I know, it’s not a leaf or a bud, but it grows really fast) rutabaga, salsify, spinach, and turnip (for harvest in the fall). Of these, you'll be smart and ahead of the game to start broccoli and cabbage seeds indoors first and then plant them out.

You can also do succession plantings on some of these to extend the harvest; just plant every week or so for 4 weeks, and you'll have a bumper crop.

Two- three weeks before your last frost you can plant beets, carrots, cauliflower, celery, chard, mustard, parsnips, and thyme.

One week before the last frost, plant coriander, dill, oregano, sage, and sunflowers.

Once the weather gets really hot, you'll find the leafy plants bolting. Botanically, what they're doing is making flowers and setting seed for next year. If you've never seen broccoli in flower, you're in for a surprise. Ditto for lettuce. Leave them in too long, and you will !

So the next crops, logically, are the flowers or fruits of plants. Different plants from the ones whose leaves and buds you've been enjoying. These warm-season vegetables include snap beans, sweet corn, peppers, summer squash, summer savory, marjoram, and tomatoes. Edible flowers are in this category, including day lilies and nasturtiums. You should wait to sow these until the average frost free date.

If you are starting veggies from seed indoors, this is also the date to transplant them.

I wrote a bit about how to do the transplanting in that earlier blog. One thing to note is that if you're growing tomatoes indoors, when you move them into individual pots, bury the stem right up to the first leaves. The stem will grow roots and this will stabilize the young plant.

Some plants really really like the heat. These should be set out only 1 -2 weeks after the last frost free date, when it's not below 50 at night. These include (seed sown directly into the soil) basil, cucumbers, lima beans, muskmelon, okra, pumpkin, winter squash, and watermelons.

You can start basil, cucumbers, eggplant, muskmelon, peppers, sweet potatoes, and summer squash indoors and transplant them once it's nice and warm.

Later in the year, I'll write some about fall crops, which include more of the cool-season plants as well as root crops. As Kingsolver points out, a plant's life cycle goes from shoot to bud to flower to fruit to seed. The root crops just bulk up their bottoms instead.

Some advice: check before you buy seeds to make sure you're getting disease-resistant and pest-resistant varieties. Weed relentlessly, and thin you crop once they've germinated. Don't work in wet soil, and don't plant in wet soil. You can cultivate around the plants if you like, but not too deep; water once a week if you've had less than 1 inch of rain, and water early so leaves dry out before nightfall. Soak the soil thoroughly, and if possible, use drip or trickle systems to conserve water

If you have slugs, bury a can with beer in it in the soil to tempt them from the straight and narrow furrows.

As for resources, my veggie teacher recommended The New Seed Starter's Handbook by Nancy Bubel. The Cook's Garden has heirloom and specialty seeds, and the Seed Savers Exchange (seedsavers.org) is worth exploring. Seeds of Change has organic seeds and a lot of advice and equipment as well. They also carry fruit trees and plants.

Keep us updated on what you're planting and how the crops are doing. Those of you in warm climates, are you planting now?

I hope you'll visit my website: view link and I'd be thrilled if you wanted to read my new book, Out of the Shadow: Ecopsychology, Story, and Encounters with the Land, available from online booksellers and the publisher, the University of Virginia Press.

Happy seeds!