EL Gardeners Look Toward Spring with Indoor Options

There are a few sure signs of the coming spring now developing in East Lansing. The daylight is beginning to stretch over more of the day, even if the sun itself remains a bit shy and shrouded behind cement-colored clouds. Gardeners in my neighborhood have remarked on the first sightings of mail-order seed and live-plant catalogues. These seasonal visitors to our mailboxes are the first harbingers of spring; the local birders have several months left before the first white-throated sparrows will return to town from their wintering in the southern states.

It is too early, in East Lansing, to plant seeds indoors if you intend to set the results out in the garden this spring. It is tough to keep seedlings healthy, small, and well fed for so long under grow-lights or in a window. Most seeds are started within two months of the last expected frost, which is mid-May for East Lansing plantswomen and plantsmen. If one has a cold-frame or some other protection for outdoor plants, the intrepid gardener might be able to stretch the season a few weeks. But generally seed starting is more for March than January.

On the other hand, my personal attitude is March, smarch. If you are not killing a few plants you are not stretching yourself as a gardener. Seeds are cheap and we might get lucky. So I say: pick a few seeds and give it a try using a sunny sill or grow-lights.

ELi has already covered the basics of starting seeds as well as some weirder types of winter gardening, like snow-sowing seeds. Here are a few tips on starting seeds indoors in East Lansing in January:

Start plants that you can eat immediately. Anything that producing edible sprouts or microgreens is a winner for starting in January. If the seedlings start to get a little tall and scraggly, you can either eat the prunings or eat the whole seedling. Good options for this approach include lettuce and any herbs, including basil, cilantro, and dill. Seeds are easily obtained at local nurseries including Horrock’s and Van Atta’s.

You could also go for broke and try something “crazy” for East Lansing, in the tradition of Michigan State University which started as Michigan Agricultural College. I grow redwoods from seed, which is not practical, easy, or nutritious, but, as a hobby, it is non-toxic and has a remarkable power to make teenagers roll their eyes. Colleagues and neighbors, meanwhile, tend to be intrigued by this Sisyphean endeavor.

You can also try growing gourds or tomatoes indoors. Both work if you have a window with good light. A particularly good choice this year is a southern exposure that is well-warmed by some central heat. We’ve tried growing corn indoors to humorous effect.

There are a couple of practical issues to keep in mind regardless of what seeds you are starting and when you are starting them:

• Use a sterile seed-starting mix. Seedlings can die off in a day from molds and wilts, and a sterile mix will help keep those scourges at bay.  The author buys his seed starter at Horrock’s and Van Atta’s, but many garden centers and hardware stores sell seed starter mixes.
• Fertilize with a small amount of a general fertilizer with each watering. Seed starting mixes have few nutrients in them and the young seedlings will need fertilizing.  
• Many big box stores and garden stores in and around East Lansing sell inexpensive LED grow-lights. The author is trying one this year.
• Use peat or paper pots as these tend to transplant well directly into an East Lansing garden. Reusing paper is probably more ecologically sound than peat pots, but not by much given how little peat goes into a peat pot. Horrock’s has very inexpensive peat pots available in bulk in their nursery section.

It is time to get serious in East Lansing if you are going to plant seeds that need pre-treatment like stratification, which is covered in our seed-starting article. If your seeds need 8-12 weeks in the cold of the refrigerator before being started indoors, this is the time to get stratifying. As the proverb tells us, time, tide, and stratification wait for no one.

Photo below: From left, a paper pot-making mold, a 2-inch square peat pot, a 1-inch terracotta pot, and a 1-inch round peat pot. The author has used all of these to successfully start seeds in East Lansing under grow-lights.