By Nermeen Nabil Khear 
Good news: Spring is around the corner. By the time the ground is warm enough to receive your flower, vegetable, and herb starts, it’s a race to see how much production you can get from these plants before the season is over. The bigger the plant you start with, the better. That’s why I give my plants a head start by growing seedlings inside. Here’s everything I’m starting indoors this month, and a few seeds you can direct sow outside, too.
(If you’ve never grown from seed indoors before, don’t be intimidated. It’s incredibly rewarding, saves money, and will give you the gardening high you need while the weather is still terrible.)
Start long-germinating flowers today
It might be hard to imagine summer flowers right now, but some take forever to germinate. In those cases, starting them inside in January or February makes sense. Tall, spiky flowers like lupines, snapdragons, foxglove, hollyhock, stock and delphiniums all need the extra time inside in order to be bloom-ready this summer. You can also start your perennials such as echinacea and coneflower now, so they’re big and healthy by the time you put them in the ground in late spring.
Spring vegetables need to be ready in four to five weeks
Sometimes people forget there’s a whole season before summer tomatoes and eggplants go in. You can have a productive (if short) spring crop if you plan appropriately. Start veggies including cauliflower, broccoli, cabbage, hardy lettuce, chard, fennel, kale and kohlrabi right now. In many places, spinach and mustard greens only do well only in spring and fall, so get those seedlings started, too. All onions, leeks and celery should be started inside in February, as soon as possible, as they take a while to be ready to plant.
While most people purchase three-year-old asparagus crowns and plant those, you can grow asparagus from seed. Growing delicate French varieties is only possible if you grow from seed, but be aware it will be years before you can harvest the spoils. Artichokes can also be grown from seed, although most people simply transplant a “pup” from an existing plant and grow it into a full-size start. In either case, artichokes and asparagus will go in the ground early in spring.
Hardy herbs need a head start, too
Tender herbs like basil and cilantro can wait, but herbs that have woody stems—like sage, lavender, winter thyme, and rosemary—need to be started now. These are possible to grow from seed, or you can take cuttings and attempt to establish them. These seedlings will go outside once the ground is warm enough, but next year they’ll overwinter outside.
Direct-sow these seeds now
There are a few seeds you can direct sow outside now. Poppies traditionally don’t transplant well, so the best course of action is to simply toss seeds around outside, and hope a small percentage of them germinate. You can also plant peas outside now—both edible and non-edible sweet peas. Don’t mix them together—sweet peas are highly toxic (though worthwhile for their smell and beauty). Edible peas should have their own area, and both will come up in early spring. You should be planting carrots while it is still raining, so they benefit from the help germinating, and beets, radishes, and turnips can be direct-sowed as soon as the ground is workable.
Keep in mind, too, that tomato, pepper, and summer seeding gets underway next month. Make sure you’ve got the seeds you need now, so you’re ready.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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