Sowing vegetable seeds

From Gardening Wiki

Time for Vegetable Seed Sowing

The time for sowing seeds depends entirely on what kinds of vegetables you want to grow. There are hardy, half-hardy, and tender vegetables, their nature being judged by how they stand cold or warm weather. Under the various chapters will be found definite suggestions for each class.

Seeds of hardy vegetables, like peas, radishes, lettuce, etc., may be sown as soon as the soil can be dug and raked in the spring. Others, like beans and corn, should not be sown until danger of frost is passed. Still others, like cucumbers, melons, squashes, etc., known as tender vegetables, should not be sown until the ground is thoroughly warm and even cool nights are but a memory.

Do not sow fine or light seeds when high wind prevails. It scatters the seeds broadly in the row and cultivation later on will prove difficult.

Covering Vegetable Seeds

Many gardening failures are traceable directly to faulty covering of the seeds. They may be covered too shallow, when the birds will get some or the sun will dry off the shallow-rooting, delicate seedlings; or they may be covered too deeply, when the sprouts will be smothered or so weakened through the labor of pushing through the soil that they die after reaching daylight.

A good general rule to keep in mind is to cover seeds to the extent of twice their thickness. For illustration, radish seeds are about one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter cover them from one-eighth to one-quarter inch deep. On light sandy soils, deeper covering may be practised than on heavy clay soils.

The exception to this rule are beans, corn, and peas which may be covered two to four inches deep, depending on character of soil. Specific suggestions how to cover the different seeds are made in other sections of this website.

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