Early March is the perfect time to get ready for the coming gardening season by starting seeds indoors. Some plants, like broccoli, begonia, impatiens and geraniums, can be started 10 weeks before the last frost. Before you rush out to grab a pot and some seeds, you'll want to gather some items and take certain steps to ensure the health of your plants. Fresh seeds, clean containers, a good seed-starting mix, tags to mark the plants, and fluorescent lights are all important inputs to produce healthy, compact seedlings.
Fresh seeds are essential to a rewarding seed-starting experience.
Old seed can have very poor viability, meaning you'll have fewer seedlings to work with. Talk with any 10 gardeners, and you're likely to find 10 different preferences for seed-starting containers. Some people like peat pots, peat pellets or newspaper pots. Others swear by plastic pots, yogurt containers or clay pots. My personal preference is to reuse plastic cell packs saved from last year's annuals.