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5 Ways To Start Gardening A Month Earlier

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Rating: 4.6; Vote: 3

If you're watching this video right now, you're thinking, yo, I cannot start gardening right now. There's snow on the ground. It's the dead of winter. It's raining from the sky. It's way too cold. It couldn't be further from the truth. My friends as the self-appointed plant, daddy. I'm here to say there's a ton you can do to get a head start on the season. So, jac-Dagy and myself are here to give you our top tips. And if there's one, you think we missed.comment. It down below, and I will personally bless you with 1 month of sunny, perfect weather, this spring. And let's get into the video when we're talking about getting a head start on the gardening season. There is no more classic example than starting seeds indoors. But I have a few twists to my methodologies. The Obvious One Every single season, I'm coming up with something a little bit different, a refinement of the technique, so to speak. And so, here are some of the things I'm doing right now. And, I'll also talk about some of the plants I would prefer to do this with, and some that you can just chuck right in the ground when the season actually starts. So, we're talking seed, starting. The first thing to do is figure out how you're going to do it. You can do it in basically anything. You could have a tray, just full of soil that you got from the supermarket that's like, would have gone in the recycle. You could use some trays like the ones we have. These are epic six cells. You could just get a pot and put it in there. It doesn't really matter too much, but what does matter is the type of material you started in. I am a huge fan of keeping things simple and just using a basic potting mix. You can even use some soil from your yard. The only thing that I like to keep in mind is I want this material to be relatively fine. I don't want large chunks. Sometimes, you'll even see something like a big rock in here or a bark. That's this size. Just want to avoid that. And then this is one of the things that's helped my germination quite a bit. When you're putting it in the tray. However, you're deciding to grow whatever tray you're using. I like to really pack it in. Not like you're making clay or something like that. But, you just want to make sure that you have a nice amount of soil in there, and, I'll just tap it down a few times. And, you can see, I even lost a little bit of height there, so, I'm just going to come back with some of the debris and put that in. And, what that does is it makes it way easier for you to pop the seedling out when it starts. And it also helps with that germination. Root development, because there's soil kind of right around that root, so, it can start growing right away. So, once you have your trays set up, what I like to do is grow everything that I am planning to grow for that season, anywhere from 1 to 2 months in advance. So, let's start with some spring selection. So, let's say you live in an area where you've got about 2 months before you can get any plant in the ground in spring. You might do something like a broccoli. This is a dio variety. I'm not Italian. So, don't get me Italians in the comments. But, this is a really great one, because you can grow this up for about 2 to 4 weeks before you even get it in the ground. And you'll speed up your growth quite a bit. And the same thing applies for your summer crops, like your peppers or your tomatoes. In fact, those are some of the ones I most prefer to start indoors, even in a southern California climate. Like I'm in, so, I go two, three per hole. And then what I'll do is just make sure that I label correctly. This is the Achilles heel of every gardener. If you're watching this right now, you're probably like, yeah, dude, I forget to label, too. I will show you how I do it. That really helps me understand what I grew and when I grew it. So what I will do is I will always go with the plant type first. So, this is broccoli, and then I'll do the variety di cho. Then I'll go the date. Usually I don't put the year, but it's fine. You can do that. And then I will typically do any special preparation or special note. In this case, I know I want this to go in the front, raised bed garden. And so then I know exactly everything I need to know when I started it, where it's going, the variety, etc. And then I'll just slot that right in there. It seems basic and trust me, it seems kind of boring. But if you're like me, you'll start a lot of seeds, and then you just will have absolutely no clue exactly what you planted when. Even if you're planting them right now, you go, oh, I'll remember. And then you just do not remember. So, label every single time, you plant out a tray or plant a pot out label. At that moment, the second you switch to another crop, like this golden boy beet, which you can plant indoors, then you want to make sure you label. So, I know I believe at that point, but it's very important. So, another thing that I like to say is you can transplant way more things than you think that you can. In fact, right now I am opening a pack of these golden boy beets. And that is a root crop. And a lot of people say, you know, you really shouldn't be starting a root crop indoors. But, if you're trying to get a head start on the season, let me tell you guys, it is completely possible. So, what you do is, with a beat, you just drop one seed in the hole. It's a compound seed, meaning it has more than one seed in this little package here. So, you don't need to drop more than one. And then it'll sprout two or three. And you can do basically a Charles, doubting multi-sewing style technique. There'll be a few that come up, and you can actually plant them as a group. Once that frost starts to die down. And then you can harvest the biggest ones, and let the smaller ones grow up or harvest the small ones, let the big ones grow up. So, you get a lot more use out of your seedlings. The only other thing, I'll say, we have a bunch of videos on how to do seedlings from Start to finish, is you want to make sure that you keep this in an area that is pretty dark and relatively warm for the first little bit of its life. Maybe 3.4.5 days. Once you start to see germination, much like this romanesco, cauliflower right here, even a little bit earlier than this, you're going to want to put some kind of lighting source on it. If all you have is a window sill, that's completely fine. But if you do have some sort of lighting system, we have this adjustable seed tray here. So, I can just do that. You want the light as close as possible to your seedlings without burning them. And when I say burning, I mean, literally burn, burning, that heat can get so hot, sometimes that it can actually singe the plant. You don't want that. So, as those plants grow up, in this case, of course, you can just kind of telescope this upwards, which is a cool feature, but you could also just put something underneath your tray so that it gets closer or further from the light source if you are in a cold area. The other thing, I'll say, it's not totally necessary. But, underneath here, I have what's called a seedling heat mat, because most seeds really want to germinate at warmer temperatures than you might have in the winter in your home, especially if you're like me, and you live in a very old house that does not have great insulation. I actually need a heat mat if I'm growing these indoors. So, there's so much more to seed starting, but it is hands down. The easiest way to get a head start on the season. And it's so fun, because in the winter time, you can't grow outside. And so, you get to 10 to your little seedlings. You know, in my case, I have a ton back here, that I'm very excited to grow. I even have an artichoke that's going to go in the garden. So, you can kind of baby these indoors and have a little mini garden. And then when the frost lets up, transplant them in, and you're good to go. It's the end of January, and I am holding a four pack of tomato seedlings. You might be thinking, it is way too early to put those out on the ground. And, you're probably right, but I am using today, an ancient piece of technology that it's actually quite simple. And people have been using for hundreds of years. A DIY Build And that piece of technology is the cold frame. A very simple box, constructed, usually out of wood, with a transparent material on top. In this case, I have glass. But you could use PL, iy-glass, sheets of plastic, or even an old window that you might have laying around. The idea behind this is that you're creating essentially a mini greenhouse. By creating the box. With this angled cut here, you're allowing light to come in at an angle. And ideally, you would want to face this to the south, so you could capture as much of that winter sun as possible. Now, a couple considerations here, when you're using a cold frame, first of all, if you don't open this or have a way of it venting, I actually have an automatic wax piston vent in here. So, what happens is when it gets warm, the wax in that c, ER, will expand and prop this window or glass surface open. As you see right Now, if you don't have that, you have to remember to come out every day with a stick prop, it open. Otherwise, you might cook your plants. The other cool thing about these is that the wood is actually quite insulating. So, you could totally put this outside somewhere. We get snow and grow, lettuce, greens, and things like that outside under snow cover. No problem. I see. People do it all the time. Now, we do have 20 different builds on the epic gardening blog. If you want to see different styles of cold frames that you might want to build, but if you don't want to build anything, or you don't want something quite this large, this next thing is a very simple solution that anyone can use no matter how big your garden is. So, you don't want to do a complicated build. Or maybe you just have one or two plants that you don't want to dedicate an entire structure to. Protection! Well, this is exactly for you. These are critter cages. Now, you might be asking yourself, how the heck, is something covered in holes going to keep my plants from freezing? Well, it's actually in a little addition that we just added. Let me get this in the ground. And I'll show you exactly how it works. What I have here is one of my overwintered peppers in our 5 in cube pot. And actually, it's been putting out a lot of new roots that I could see coming out to the edges. So, this guy is ready to go back out in the garden, and it is even starting to regrow. But, if I put this out here just now and left it to the elements, it probably wouldn't have a very good time. So, what I'm going to do instead is go ahead, get this planted in, nice and tight. I'm going to take my critter cage here. The secret to making something like this, actually protect your plants, is to use frost fabric. You can get frost fabric from many different places. This one is designed specifically to fit right over our critter cage, and it will offer about 10 degrees of added temperature support. So, if it's like 30° outside, this will be as if it is 40 and protect your plants from those frosts, that might otherwise kill it to install it. There's two loops on this. And all you have to do is pull it over the top, get it nice and snug around the cage here. And the nice thing is, it has these little loops, so, you can actually staple them down to the earth. And, that'll stop this from blowing away. If it's too windy, it'll stop it from getting picked up by something like a raccoon or a pest. And the other thing I'd like to recommend is actually, once you do something like this, it's hard to get it fully sealed And you could either HE, it up with soil, like so, or you could just take a whole bunch of mulch and layer it all around it. Once, it's all covered up in mulch like this, it will be protected from any of those extra cold winds that might sneak underneath. And the really cool thing that I love about these is that you could put this wherever you want. I can now plant direct seed, other things that are more coal-tolerant around this without a problem. Or, let's say I had a container, like over here, I could also plant in containers as well, just like that. So, it's a very amenable system to wherever you're growing. However, you're growing and they provide 10° of protection, which should give you a nice head. Start in the garden. If you live somewhere with a short growing season, like I do, we can actually start our seeds months earlier. No grow light needed. Milk Jugs? We're just going to harness the power of nature. When we sew seeds using this method, we're going to be mimicking nature, which means that the seedings of themselves will be a lot healthier, more robust and cold hearty. In fact, you're not even going to need to harden off these seedlings at all. Cuz. They basely been hardening off since the moment. We planted them To get started with this winter sewing method, you need some kind of jug. I have a vinegar jug here. You can also use a milk jug or a water jug. It just needs to be semi-opaque with a fairly deep bottom. And I like to have one that-has a narrow opening at the top that we can remove the lid from. We need some sharp implements. I've got a small knife and some scissors here. I have my spinach seeds. You can use all sorts of different types of seeds. It just depends on your climate. I have some tape to seal up that jug. And I also have popsicle sticks to write what I actually planted on inside of the jug, so that it doesn't wash away. So, the very first thing that we're going to do is we're going to pop some drain holes in the bottom of the jug. And, we just want to be really careful while we push through here. There we go. And I like to do about four depending on the size of the container. Now, what we need to do is actually cut open the container itself. The only important thing to not, is we want to leave a hinge right along that handle point, and it doesn't need to be quite this deep With a container like this. I'll probably go about here, and I've just pre-moistened this soil so that I won't need to disturb the seeds at all when I place them. Next, we're going to add our spinach seeds. I'm using Bloomsdale spinach, and you can really over-sew in this case, because they're not going to stay in here. We'll cover these spinach seeds to about half an inch deep. And then we just need to make our label. I'm going to stick the label inside. And now, all we have to do is seal it up. I'm taking off the lid. At this point, we do want to just leave this off so that any rain and snow can get inside. And it can vent a little bit. All this left to do is seal this up and put it in the right location. We're just going to place our jug along a south-facing wall, where it can get the maximum sun exposure and protection from the wind. Every crop is going to be a little bit different in terms of timing. When you can move these from. Milk jugs out into the ground. But as a general rule, as long as your transplants have two to three true leaves and your ground can be worked, you can move these outside. Probably about 2 to 4 weeks earlier than you would be able to. Had you started your seedlings indoors, this tunnel isn't just how I grow food all winter, long, even in the snow. It's also key to gerting my seedlings and getting a head start on those long-season crops, like eggplant, and peppers that don't tend to do as well. DIY Hoop House If you live in a short-season climate, like I do, and it does this by keeping the inside temperature at least 20° warmer than it is outside. I started by hammering in some rebar stakes along the four corners and just leaning some wood baseboards up against that so that when I bent my cattle panel into place, it would stay there with just tension. I didn't even need to use any additional power tools. After that, I added the plastic over the top. And I used heavy duty tarp clips to keep that in place. But, the key that keeps my soil from freezing and keeps the inside of this greenhouse, tropical, even when it's 0° outside, is actually in the double layering that I use inside. So, let's go check that out. The cattle panel on the outside of the greenhouse is wrapped in special greenhouse, plastic. But, inside the greenhouse, I've used this lightweight row cover to create an additional layer of insulation. And this lightweight row cover is super important because it still allows enough sunlight in for the plants to continue to grow while trapping that sunlight to keep my soil from freezing, which means I can plant my warm weather crops, like peppers a lot sooner than I would be able to. Overwintering Otherwise, this tip is how to get almost a year ahead of next season and start planting way earlier. This is like the most important one I've used specifically for my peppers. And, I know I've talked about this before on the channel, but I think it's so important. I've even evolved this strategy slightly, so, it's overwintering your peppers, which means you'll make a note this season to do this for the next season. When you pull these peppers out of the ground, normally, you'd rip these out, compost them. Okay. My peppers are done, then you'd start more pepper seeds, which you can do, but if you have peppers, you know, you love, I have a bikin, white pepper. Beautiful. It's actually one of the ones that at Trader Joe's. They put in those little pepper-drop snacks. I like them. My girlfriend likes them, grow your own Hungarian, round. I have a jalapeno. I know I want those in the garden every single year. So, what I do is I will clip off about 2 / 3 of their growth. So, you can see these are really kind of chopped up and then I'll dig them out of the ground. I'm putting them in a small pot. This is our 5in pot that we actually just launched, but any pot will do. And then I will just prune these leaves off. Isn't ready to go into the garden just yet because it's still mid to late January. I want to wait a couple more months, so I'm just going to take some of this growth off, to force it back into that dormant phase. That's pretty much the only thing you've got to do when you're overwintering these peppers. The only other thing I'll say is maybe water them, like once a month. Remember, there's no leaves, there's not a lot of transpiration. The roots are using some water, but they really are kind of dormant. And if you want to trim them up a little bit more, you totally can. But the reason this is so powerful is because, I know I want a hulapeno in my garden every single year. I know I have this beautiful jalapeno right here. So, why not just put this in and it's like putting in a transplant on steroids, it is going to start way faster. It's going to grow way bigger. And in that second, third, fourth, sometimes even fifth, sixth year of growth, you'll get so many more peppers than you would If you started a jalapeno from seed over and over and over again. That's my final one for you guys. Check out our seed starting guide. If you're curious, how to get going, you can always shop Our store at Shop. Guardian.com. Good luck in the garden, and keep on. Growing.
Date: 2024-01-28

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Comments and reviews: 20

dustyflats3832
Not starting too early this year. There is no advantage to having an already flowering veg plant as it sets them back. The plant needs to grow roots first then production. It’s too much work and costs involved.
I will try a low tunnel for a few peppers, but if the soil isn’t 55 there will be no advantage as warm season plants will just sit there.
Winter sowing is not working the best here in the upper Midwest as the temperatures are crazy last two years. Everyone thinks the seeds know when to sprout and that isn’t the case in an artificial environment in a crazy weather pattern such as ours is right now. It’s January and we are getting rain and possibly 50F next weekthat’s crazy! For people near large bodies of water the temps seem to moderate better. The whole coastline need not be too concerned about freezing temps. Last year most WS seeds either rotted or froze.
Mid May frost free date and last year 90 degrees in May that had a severe freeze on the last weekend. The plants were more advanced than I ever seen them and many were killed or set back severely. Z5a.
Not sure as I’ve never overwintered peppers, but did read production for some was not worth the hassle.
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cosyyy633
Very informative video thanks to u people of epic gardening. What I'd really like to see as for a video: If u are living in an old building and have some sort of wind coming thru, so that it gets too cold for plants and /or pests, invaders destroy the plants no matter what. What I'd like to see is maybe some tips
I have tried so much with my plants and even the hardest ones are easy to kill in my room. I usually have the issues of pest, invaders, not enough light as my room is on east side (where sun fastly moves in the mornings so not enough lighting) and windstreams bringing most problems too. My. Room. Ain't build perfectly for my plants to rotate in secure space so maybe some. Isolation tips I'd be happy
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bobalman
PEPPERS! I experimented this time with overwintering them in the ground in zone 9b. I'm up in Santa Rosa CA, so I'm lagging your zone a few weeks. I trimmed them back the same way, then covered completely with leaves, covered all that with shade cloth. when it settled, more leaves and another shade cloth. The plants are nice and green, and look like they will make it. I'm curious how I should go ahead. The soil is damp, even after tremendous downpours. It seems the leaves act like a roof. I'm thinking I should leave them as is until the night temperatures stay above 50F and the danger of frost has passed. What about those gadgets Jacques showed This will be so cool to save almost 20 plants!
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Gardeningchristine
Some of the potatoes I grew last year were putting out eyes, just one healthy 1-3 inch eye each, so I popped them off and ate the potatoes. I planted all of the little eyes about 1/2 way in 3 inch pots and threw them under my grow light. Why not right. I was going to throw them in the compost anyway. I am amazed that they are all greening up and leafing out. I’m going to have to pot them up soon. I did this last year with a red potato eye my uncle sent me and potted it into a 3 gallon pot and got 9 nice potatoes. I was able to take it outside for a couple months to finish growing, but I’m hopeful that my south facing windows and grow lights will get me a harvest.
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NicolaiAAA
I really want to try and direct sow my brassicas this year, because the last times I've attempted starting them indoors, even my bright south window isn't enough and everyone gets all leggy. The trick is figuring out when to plunk them down. I'm going to guestimate (as temps have been all over the place here) and then use milk jugs as mini greenhouses to keep them at a better temp. Fingers crossed this works!
Edit: OHHECK A ZONE 6B PERSON DOING THIS VERY THING! Or close enough at least, haha! Heck yeah!
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abyssal_phoenix
I've failed with the overwintering my peppers but i have managed to do it a bit differently
Basically when everything starts to die in November i start sowing my plants that need quite some more time to grow up and make the best use of the growing season
So i start sowing peppers for example in December/January
The plants i keep indoors (i only grow a few plants so they don't take up much space) and when they can move out in april/may they are almost ready to bloom already
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craigdawson7632
Pots with QR codes to scan with your ph. Like ubiquiti port finder augmented reality.
Could have plant date, name, add strike rate, feedings.
Merg it with your planning app.
In saying that, i'm ramping up growing a bit more has anyone got a good market gardening app, ideally that has a one off cost I can host rather than a slow bleed from a subscription
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amyschultz8058
Great timing for me. I just started some seeds this past week.
I really appreciated the cold frame advice on venting, we are currently building one out back for next fall, our winter's are a bit crazy at times here so i was thinking airtight as possible, i will definitely remember to vent it now watching this video. Thanks so much.
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Thingys-Jill
I started my artichoke and pepper seeds at the beginning of January. They're growing nicely! I'll be starting tomatoes in a couple of weeks so they're nice and big before going outside. Don't forget hardening off! I put mine on rolling shelves that I will have near the garage door. I simply open and close the door for hardening off!
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mynameisnotjose
I took a risk starting sunflowers early indoors, but i couldn't wait! I received some seeds from my son's school garden and I needed to plant them! Now they're growing taller than the grow light no matter what I do. Even when the lights are off over night they grow an inch! This video was insanely perfect timing.
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Gardeningchristine
I’m trying to grow beit alpha cucumbers in my south facing windows too this year. They have just gotten their second leaves so I’m potting them up into their forever pots soon. I’m hoping they won’t need as much water since they’re inside. I can barely keep them watered in the summer.
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Talula72
I brought one of my peppers in for the first time last Fall. I cut it back, took off all the leaves and set under a grow light. It grew new leaves, flowered and gave me 2 jalapenos. Since then it is just basically stayed the same. I hope it does ok going outside come warmer temps
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laydawesome
I LOVE to clean up my garden during the cold months because I know I won’t run into snakes or spiders. So you’ll catch me outside doing all the organizing and heavy stuff, even meticulous tasks so that my garden is ready to simply put seeds in without a weed or debris in sight.
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lizziesmusicmaking
If you're up north, trying to start seeds on a windowsill in february or march, you may find you need additional light. I use a growlight in addition to the light from the west-facing window of the sill. Before that they got rather spindly. They are much better now.
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MyFocusVaries
Love it. Winter sowing is my method. Sow and forget until spring. Though I'm trying to figure out a plastic free alternative. The more i learn about plastics and their affect on the environment and our bodies, the more I worry. Maybe winter sowing in a cold frame.
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LittleKi1
I have cold frames ready to go for the first time and am excited to see how it compares to a low tunnel. I'm also going to make a hot bed and put the cold frame on top of that and see if I can't get my soil temps up and seeds going a month extra extra early.
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EvieApricots
Was about to comment on the year date but everyone beat me to it. Much love from the PNW. Excited to see all the new faces and hopefully more from my grow zone! Got my signed copy of your book in yesterday. Excited to start my balcony garden this year.
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johndesrocher4289
6B REPRESENT! Nice to see someone from my zone giving us some great tips. Also great to see you guys made it through the rain, we were worried about you for a bit there. As always, fantastic video, can't wait to put these ideas into action. Thanks!
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jase_allen
2: 45 You pronounced Di Cicco correctly the first time. A c is pronounced as ch if it's followed by an i or e. However, if the c is followed by an h, then it's always pronounced as a hard c. I sometimes get confused and do that with Spanish words.
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Josef_R
Eric's tips aren't for me. My planting date is March 15, but I'm waiting until April 1 because I have learned planting as early as possible is a waste of time, the plants do better the warmer it is and a surprise late frost will destroy everything.
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