The cold winter months are the perfect time to plan the garden for the upcoming season. Especially if you want to grow some of your own plants from seed!

If you have a little space near a sunny window, it is pretty easy to sow most vegetable and annual flower seeds indoors. The hard part is choosing from the hundreds of varieties that are available.

I can spend hours thumbing through seed catalogs this time of year. Circling potential garden contenders in pen. If I’m really into a variety, I draw a few stars. Then I fold the corners of the pages over so I can come back to compare the different varieties in the various catalogs and make the final cuts. There are always a couple of impulse buys that make the list. Sometimes a new flower or some wild-looking vegetable. I really try to plan the garden from a practical perspective. This means I try to only grow what we actually enjoy eating, in amounts that are feasible for us to eat, and focus on the items that are the most expensive in the grocery store.

Pre-Purchase

Also, before I make any purchases, I map out our vegetable garden on graph paper. This is so I know there is space for everything I want to grow. This is also a good time to plan for crop rotation. We want to make sure plants from the same family aren’t planted in the same soil in succession. I also include notes for the plants that will be kept close at hand in the front flower bed or in containers on the porch.

I like to grow certain things in the front of the house. Things like herbs, cherry tomatoes, and lettuces. I don’t have to walk around to the backyard to harvest a handful for a quick salad or to add flavor to dinner. This is mostly because I’m lazy. (Our backyard is only 100 feet from the front door). But because I recognize this quality in myself, keeping the plants that can be harvested regularly close to the kitchen door ensures that less will go to waste.

Once all of this planning is done and the seeds are ordered, I excitedly wait on them to arrive so that I can start sowing them indoors in mid-March. Generally speaking, seeds for summer vegetables and flowers should be started indoors around six weeks before your last average frost date. This is in early May for my Zone 6 garden. Of course not all seeds need to be started indoors. However, it helps get a jump-start on the season. Especially for plants that need longer to produce like tomatoes and peppers. Seed packs will generally specify if and when to plant seeds indoors or out. Spring is coming!