All The Seeds You Can Start in March!

what is going on everyone welcome to another very exciting episode right here on the in my Gardener Channel check out this huge stack of seeds these are all seeds that we're going to be starting today because in today's episode we're going to talk about varieties that you can be starting in March let's go so the first Friday that you can be starting right now and you probably should start if you have the space is onions now the reason why we want to start onions right now is because the fact that onions take a long time to mature we're talking around 100 to 110 days and so you want to start your onions now if you want to have any chance of harvesting them by like Late July early August which is right around the time when you want to harvest them now we started most of our onions last week but again onions are cropped that you can start in succession and you can start some you know a week ago some right now you can even start some next week and be just fine I like to make sure that I start my onions approximately about six to seven weeks before my last frost date that way I have some good you know plants that are up and growing ready to go out in the garden as soon as the garden is warm enough to accept them and that way they're Off to the Races because the thing with onions is that they're daylight specific they start bulbing when the daylight when the days start to get shorter right that's after that's after the longest day of summer right the longest day of summer is every day after that they start getting shorter and onions will register that because they are what's known as photosensitive and photosensitive plants will basically start to prepare themselves for winter despite the fact that it'll be like July when that happens they're going to say well I need to start storing up energy and that's where they start to get larger they start to bulb up but every day before that point that's when they're actually putting on leaves and the more leaves you have the bigger the plant is the larger the onion is going to be so the sooner you can start it the larger the onion is going to be pretty simple but that's why we start them early all right the next grouping of seeds you can be starting in March are your cold hardy greens now we talked about this in the last episode of things you can start in February where a lot of these greens are greens that you can succession so so just because we covered them in the last episode doesn't mean we can't cover them today because a lot of greens that are cold hardy we will start them in succession so that we don't have every thing growing and maturing all at the same time so things like spinach kale mosh or corn salad which is a great one by the way you should totally try it if you haven't tried it it's amazing very cold hardy really sweet crisp teeny tiny little buttery leaves amazing lettuce and mustard greens there's also things like arugula which I don't have represented here but you could have grabbed arugula you could have grabbed uh Radicchio so many different cold hearty greens that exist that you could start now and you could also start them in two weeks from now you could start them in April as well right so we're probably going to cover some of these in April again because the thing is is that we'll start them about every two weeks so that we have some that are growing some that are more grown and then some that are mature and ready to harvest that way we're not getting them all at once but you can absolutely start these cold hardy greens right now in March now the other thing too is we're going to start some in our Greenhouse here but we're also going to start some directly out in the garden in about a week or two it's still going to be March and we're going to put some of these like your mustard greens and the spinach directly out in the garden because they need to get established before the warm weather comes they don't like hot weather at all as soon as it gets above 60 degrees they go to seed and so these are some varieties that you can directly sow right in the garden and you don't even have to have a greenhouse or grow light or grow room or anything to grow these varieties all right so the next grouping of crops you can be starting in March are your flowers now not all flowers you can start in March there's some that I wouldn't recommend flowers that grow really fast or Sprout really fast I would not grow those Because by the time it comes time to planting you're going to have an absolute massive mess on your hands flowers like borage are ones I would not recommend starting whereas flowers like lavender you pretty much have to start right now now it's not going to be the end of the world if you don't start it right now like if you're watching this video because it's up on YouTube and you're watching in April I would recommend still getting it started right now but you're going to have to start it as soon as possible because you have to do what's called cold stratify that means you're going to put these seeds on a damp paper towel for about two to three weeks then you're gonna take it out of the out of the fridge for about two to three weeks after about two to three weeks and you're going to put it into some soil after that point that's when it's going to start germinating and once it germinates it's going to take a long time to get growing and to get established so the sooner you can start it the better things like marigolds they're cold hardy so you can move them out in the garden as soon as possible they don't love a frost so make sure you're at least out of the threat of frost but they're going to be great to have out in the garden because in the springtime hungry animals like rabbits come around because they're looking for a food source they've been hibernating and well not really hibernating but they've been kind of laying low all winter and they're probably really hungry and that's when the first bits of food start forming like little Clover and your garden right you start planting out your lettuce and it's like the rabbits come around from miles around and say oh that's a food source and so having Marigolds in the ground as soon as you're planting some of your other spring crops can really help to kind of protect them won't be a won't be a Surefire way to keep rabbits out of your garden but it at least helps and then there's also two other flowers that I grabbed here like coneflowers echinacea and poppies these are flowers that they take a while to germinate and take a while to get established to flower so I thought I'd grab these two as well because those kind of all fit in into the same category of cold hardy and slow to sprout and grow those are ones that I'd be recommend I'd recommend starting right now just because they have such a long time Horizon until they actually start flowering all right the next grouping of crops for March planting are kind of your cool weather cold weather herbs or herbs that just take a long time to get started so we have here fennel it's a very cold hearty herb you can plant this now some people consider it to be more like a vegetable I consider it to be more like an herb because you can use all different parts of the plant right so I kind of consider it to be an herb but just depends on on how you treat it but I love fennel and planting fennel early on is great it can tolerate warmer weather but if you plant it when it's cold it takes a little bit longer to get it mature and I find that actually builds a little bit more flavor more fennel flavor by planting it earlier so fennel's one you can be planting right now also cilantro now this is one that I'd recommend starting now just because of the fact that it does not like warm weather whatsoever fiber we talked about this I think in the varieties you can start in February this is another one that I succession so so I'm going to start some you know right now and then I'm going to start a little bit more in two weeks I'm going to start even a little bit more in two weeks after that and then that way I have cilantro that's going to be ready to harvest through basically all of spring and then once we get into what we call kind of our our fall summer that's where it goes from essentially winter to summer like that they're going to go to seed and basically cilantro season will be over and that sometimes happens in like mid April sometimes that happens in like mid-june but you never really know and so I like to start mine early because you can basically throw it out with snow on the ground right out into the garden I'm going to start some in our Greenhouse but you could direct sow it right out in the garden right now in early March and be totally fine it'll grow for you and it can tolerate any Frost any freeze any snow and it's going to be in the garden growing so that you can Harvest it as soon as it's ready to be harvested the last thing I want you guys to do is to throw it in the garden in like April have it just start sprouting and then have April say well hey it's summertime let's go and then the cilantro is just like well okay I'll sit here and wither for you because that's what will happen anything above 65 degrees cilantro is really going to suffer and then there's also just herbs that take a long time to get growing things like Thyme and then there's also things like uh like Sage right grab some Sage Sage is another one just takes a while to get growing they're perennials so the sooner you can get them growing the sooner you can get them established the better they're going to be in the garden so Sage another one oregano could be another one I couldn't grab them all because we'd have a million seeds out here but oregano Sage thyme parsley uh you know Rosemary all those ones all those ones so lots of different herbs you can be starting right now all of them are pretty great the only herb that I wouldn't really start right now would be basil the reason why is basil is a warm weather crop and if you start it right now it's going to be just way too big and you're going to have kind of a it's gonna be difficult to move it out into the garden successfully because we're not going to be planting out in the garden most of our crops until probably like early to mid April or so and so um in a month and a half time your basil is going to be like this tall it's going to be overgrown and you're going to really have to find a place to put it and to keep transplanting it to keep it healthy I'd much rather just wait a couple weeks and then start it in like early April to move it out into the garden that way it's out in the garden it's not going to be stressed and it's going to be just growing in a better in a better climate where it's going to excel all right so now we're going to talk about brassicas now we did talk about kale and the cold hardy greens category but you could basically consider them part of this category as well because kale is a Brassica but these are some varieties of brassicas that you can be starting right now now I will say that you want to be patient with when you move these some of these out into the garden and the reason why is because brassicas are very notorious for going to seed early if they're exposed to cool weather and then you get a surprise you know Heat Wave sometimes it can actually cause them to go to seed and what I want you to do is to be patient with some of these because because it makes no difference whether you keep them indoors for an extra two weeks or whether you keep them out in a greenhouse as long as they are climate controlled right they don't want to be exposed to the roller coaster right some of these greens or some of these brassicas don't mind the roller coaster some do and so I'm going to break them up into roller coaster friendly varieties and not roller coaster friendly varieties right so things that can tolerate sporadicness in the spring collards you can start them right now get them established as soon as you're ready to move them out in the garden that's totally fine if they're exposed from a 40 degree day to a 65 degree day they're going to be fine they're gonna be totally fine they are fine in a roller coaster brussels sprouts totally fine in a roller coaster you can move you can start them right now you can move them out in your garden when you're ready and they're going to be totally fine let's see here cabbage can totally tolerate the roller coasters no problem at all we've had many years where we planted them out in the garden when it was like 35 degrees basically winter weather and then the next week it was 72 degrees that has happened on actually more times than you probably would imagine I think like two or three that I can recall where that has happened cabbage did totally fine no problems at all the two that I would recommend keeping climate controlled you could start them right now but keep them in your grow uh in your Greenhouse keep them in your grow room do not plant them out until the weather has stabilized is cauliflower and broccoli these are two brassicas that if you uh if you start them and you move them outside and the weather has not stabilized you are in for so many problems because these will go to seed super fast and one of the most common questions people write in asking is Luke my broccoli has like little teeny tiny heads on it will they ever get bigger and the Saturn unfortunate reality is no no they won't they will not get bigger as soon as a broccoli starts to flower that is the plant basically saying it's time for me to produce seed because the end of my life is near and when it thinks the end of its life is near it can't just go in reverse there's no reverse button on these plants and so these are crops that if you can grow them right now and you have the space to grow them right now you can start them right now but just keep them in your grow room keep them in your Greenhouse until about the time you're planting out your Tomatoes believe it or not you're going to plant these out about the same time that you're going to plant your tomatoes out in the garden that's when it's very stable and you're not going to have the roller coaster of weather all right so the next grouping of crops you can be starting in March are your solonensei or your Nightshade plants now these are plants that fall under the family of nightshades things like tomatoes peppers eggplants I don't have it here but tomatillos and you know ground cherries things like that these crops what makes them special is that the sooner you can get them started the better the thing is you do want to make sure you have lots of space for them right because they take a long time to mature but they grow very fast this kind of puts them in a weird category like you have these these flowers here they take a long time to germinate and they take a long time to grow so they don't take up that much space you could basically keep them in these teeny tiny little trays for like four to five weeks and they're not going to have a problem you could never do that with things like tomatoes because they grow really fast but they take a long time to mature that's why we're starting them early because the earlier you could start them the better now what we're going to do is we're going to start them in well we're going to start them in these trays here for about one or two weeks then we're going to take the healthiest plants we're going to basically select the healthiest of the bunch so we have the best success and we're going to move them over to these trays right here now depending on how fast they grow and how the weather behaves this may be fine until um you know until mid about mid April or so but in the event that the weather does not cooperate and you know the uh the groundhog decided that we need two more weeks of uh or whatever it is three more weeks of winter whatever four more weeks of winter I don't even know if the groundhog decides that winter has not arrived yet and we have some more cold weather and we need to buy some time we're going to move them into three inch pots now these are their final home if need be so that's just how we migrate them through the pot sizes you could always just start them directly in a three inch pot but the thing is you're not gonna be able to pick the healthiest plant if you do that what we really like is starting 10 plants picking the healthiest two or three for our garden and then the rest will either you know give to a friend or family a member or you know we'll just discard them as backup plants and that's fine but then the healthiest plants go through the whole chain and then we end up with these beautiful seedlings that do much better in our garden so start your start your your Nightshade crops now you will thank me later the earlier you can get them started the better all right now the final grouping of crops are kind of just like a miscellaneous grab bag of crops so these are all going to be kind of different and so I couldn't really fit these in any specific category so they're we're just going to lump them all into a miscellaneous category which is fine we have radishes which are not going to be started indoors those are going to be started directly out in the garden you want to start them soon and the sooner the better because they can tolerate cold weather but they don't like warm weather at all they're a lot like spinach and cilantro in that if you can get them out in the garden the sooner you can get them out in the garden the better then there is beets now beets we grow multiple times throughout the season and the sooner you can get them started the sooner you can kind of succession sew them as well so we'll start a few right now we'll actually start a few in the greenhouse we'll start a few in about two weeks out in the garden then every two weeks we're going to start more and that way throughout the entire season summer and fall as well we're going to be harvesting beets so beets are ones that you can get multiple multiple crops out of and it's a great crop because not only do they not take up that much space in the garden so you can succession sew them pretty easily but they can also tolerate such a wide variety of weather conditions that it allows you to grow them in like you know the the very earliest glimpse of spring all the way until you know winter starts knocking on your door so I love beets for that now Swiss chard now Swiss Chard is kind of a cold weather Green I could have thrown it in that category but I didn't so sorry uh and so Swiss Chard is another one it's kind of it's like a it's they call it beetroot so it's kind of it's kind of like a beat kind of like a leafy green I don't know how to consider this so it's in its kind of miscellaneous category it's another cold hardy leafy green you can grow it now all the way through summer into fall even into winter it does amazing so get it in your garden now get it growing we're gonna be starting some in our Greenhouse to give it a little bit of a head start but that's only because the weather is still cold and the seeds might not germinate that fast so we're going to start some in our Greenhouse we're going to start some out in our garden you can start it right now no problem at all then there is celery now we talked about celery in the last uh episode about things you can start in February and you want to get celery started now start celery as soon as you possibly can because I don't know if you can see this but it takes a hundred days to mature a hundred days so just like onions you don't want to be sitting around on this and then only have 120 days of frost-free days left because this also takes eight to ten days to germinate and so from germination until maturity is a hundred and ten days you got to get it started now I don't care if you're starting in a greenhouse or if you're putting it out in your garden they're very cold hardy they can tolerate it no problem but you have to get them started early otherwise you're going to be ending up with half grown celery which you could still eat but I'd prefer to have full grown celery then there are artichokes and asparagus now asparagus is a perennial the sooner you can start it the better I always talk about you know perennials and getting them established and one of the biggest reasons why people lose their perennials is not because they did anything wrong well it's not because they did anything wrong with their Garden it's that they were wrong in not starting it and getting it established enough the root system on the asparagus is what stores the energy for the future season and so the longer you have it growing that you know during that season the more established the root system is going to be and the higher probability it is of going to be able to survive the winter so get it started soon you'll thank me later now and the final thing that I have for you is artichokes and that's just because it's another long one 120 days 120 days to uh to maturity and it takes 14 to 20 days to germinate so we're talking like 140 days from the moment you put the seed in the ground until you harvest an artichoke and that's if everything goes right so here in Michigan you got to start them early so that is the last one and those are all the seeds you can be starting in March now there's lots of other there's tons of others that I didn't mention but I couldn't do them all this video would be you know three hours long if I picked them all so um this gives you a really good idea of things you can start in March I hope you guys enjoyed I hope you learned something new if you did make sure you hit the like button subscribe if you haven't already and share this video with a friend if they are new to gardening they're either Advanced to gardening it's the only way that we can help our Channel grow and so we rely on it because you are the word of mouth that helps our Channel grow so I appreciate your support and as always this is Luke from the on my Gardener Channel reminding you to grow bigger take care guys bye

Channel: MIgardener

Views: 89,829

Keywords: MIgardener, vegetable gardening, organic gardening

Id: _w1HpkLrIsk

Length: 19min 39sec (1179 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 15 2023