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I know it is snowing today but I normally start my seeds indoors early in March. Peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes for me in the little peat pellet greenhouses sitting on the freezer. I normally do onions too but they always seem to die before planting time. I am thinking about getting my pellets and seeds this week. What you guys getting started this year and when?

I only do tomatoes from seed and will not start them for several weeks yet. A good friend at church who is now 82 started his peppers last week. He grows 100s of pepper plants, buys his seed in 500 seed packs. Peppers take a little bit longer to germinate than tomatoes so its OK to start them a little earlier. He starts them indoors and then moves them outside to a home made green house he constructed from an old metal swing set and plastic. It seems to work well for him. I don't grow onions from seed, I buy onion sets and just plant them. They are only about $1 per pound and I plant 3 pounds. So if your planning on putting your plants out in the garden along about Memorial Day then it isn't too early to start peppers, but I would wait a bit for your tomato seeds. Just one old guys opinion. You can push the season all you want, but tomatoes don't grow well until the nights get hot.

PS, I am from up North of the Mason Dixson Line, so if you are a bit farther south than I am you can adjust accordingly.

I'm with you, Guy. Tomato variety has been the only difference I've seen in harvesting. Planting them early seems of no benefit. Basil likes that heat too. I'm with you two, though. I've been thinking about seeding since February!

March 1 I planted cold weather crops: Mizuna, chard, celeriac, spinach and sorrel. I'm hoping to get it out in the cold frame as soon as the ground thaws out. Maybe in August at this rate...

Last summer I bought about a dozen bags of high peat soil (similar to what I have at the farm) and brought them to town. Now I have to see if my son will bring a couple bags into the house ... or borrow/buy a two wheel cart and do it myself. I have been collecting containers for starting seeds for quite a while now and would like to get started early. I figure it will take a couple days of being inside to bring the soil temperature up to a decent level after all the cold and snow we have had this year. There is a bag full of seeds that I've acquired over a period of time, and anything that germinates is one thing I won't have to buy in May.

Has everyone seen the "hot bed" that someone created with dark wine bottles? The bottle lie on their side to form a perimeter, with the necks in the middle. Soil is placed over the necks of the bottles, several inches deep. Sunlight will heat the air in the bottles, warming the soil and making a friendly environment for seeds. I think I need to talk to my friend the bartender. I know they throw away many cases of beer bottles every day, both long neck and quart size.

I started mine last week:
cabbage (probably waited too long)
brocoli (probably waited too long)
lettuce
tomatoes
sweet and hot peppers

they have all started as of this morning with cabbage and lettuce being the first to take off sometime this weekend and the peppers being the last, probably because I didn't control the temp as well as I should have.

I built my raised beds this past weekend and I'm constructing my Mel's Mix tonight after work. Hoping to get some planting done tomorrow for cold weather seeds.

I live in Southeast TN, so I'm nearly out of frost weather.

WOW, nearly frost free in early March. I am in awwww of your growing season. This far North it is much shorter. I have planted in mid April some years, when I was feeling frisky and wanted to take a BIG risk. Normally only had to cover the garden with a 40 ft tarp once or twice to protect it from frost. I feel pretty comfortable by mid May, but it has frosted as late as Memorial Day, although that was extremely rare and I do not think we shall ever see that again. The Old Italian gardeners from the Assunta Club all wait until Memorial Day to plant out in the garden their tomatoes and peppers. They start their tomatoes seeds 6 weeds before memorial day, peppers a little bit before that. Two and 1/2 hours North of here where my hunting camp is located they have at least 2 more weeks with frost than we see here, I guess a 100 miles can make a big difference in the weather. Grow for your climate, after awhile you know when it is safe to set out plants.

This is the first year I have ever started my own seeds and its going to be the first year I've ever grown more than just tomatoes.

I expect to learn a lot!

I mixed all my soil up for my raised beds last night, instead of 4 - 4 ft x 4 ft beds I built 2 - 4ft x 8ft beds. I used 8 cuft Vermiculite, 8 cuft peat moss and 16 cuft of black compost. I still have probably 10 cuft of compost and I bagged up 3-4 cuft of my mel's mix, hopefully that will be enough for my two potato beds.

Mixing all of that by hand was a bear, but hopefully it will be worth it!

Yeah living in the south has its perks for sure, plus SE TN is amazing for outdoors in general.

I've got cool weather greens, onions, and some brassicas coming up in the greenhouse. I've done two rounds of seed starting so far, and am getting ready to get the tomatoes and peppers going in the coming week. I love spring and the new garden excitement!

Still waiting here. We had another 8" of snow on top of 1/4" of ice this week, which resulted in 3 more snow days for school. We have rain today but the weather center says it might change to snow/sleet over night. This is starting to get really boring.