It’s that time of year again, summer has arrived and that means direct sowing seeds straight into your prepped garden beds! Garden beds not done yet? Here’s some quick tips on prepping your garden beds. If you are ready to start direct sowing your outdoor garden though, here is everything you need to know.
What Is Direct Sowing?
Direct sowing is simply digging a small hole in your garden bed and placing the seed directly into the soil, cover and wait for it to grow into your beautiful plant. In other words, planting seeds directly into the garden where they will mature and live out the entire season. When direct sowing seeds, there’s no need for starting seeds indoors or transplanting seedlings.
Direct sowing is the ideal method for gardening, the only reason many gardeners start seeds indoors is due to the length of their growing season. Living in Zone 5B, we struggle with this so most of our garden is started indoors. However, direct sowing seeds mimics how plants grow naturally in the wild, yet also allows for the slight control of a gardeners touch. Direct sowing seeds is also ideal for crops that don’t like root disturbance. Plants like radishes, carrots, lettuce, beets – essentially a lot of early spring crops.
Benefits of Direct Sowing
There are many benefits to direct sowing seeds, the biggest issue with direct sowing is your growing season, for us, that means we can’t direct sow until May. Right now we’re nearing the end of May and have yet to start our direct sowing seeds because of the temperature (and our busy schedule with constantly sick children). It’s a bit challenging in that regard, but that aside, there are countless benefits:
- Less equipment and setup required (no grow lights, no heat mats, etc).
- Stronger root systems since plants grow in place and mature in place.
- Less transplant shock compared to indoor-started seedlings needing to regulate to the outdoors.
- Saves indoor space.
- Often better suited for large plantings or succession sowing.
- Some seeds cannot be transplanted and need to be directed sowed.
Best Crops for Direct Sowing
As mentioned above, there are a lot of crops that are best for direct sowing. No matter what you see at a nursey – please don’t fall for these plants. Don’t buy any of these from the store or start indoors. It’s not going to be as successful as it could be by direct sowing yourself. I’ll go into more details here.
Root Crops
Root crops like carrots, radishes, and beets, potatoes (technically tubers) are best grown in one spot. Their root system is directly affected when transplanting and it could lead to no harvest or a very poor one at best.
Fast Growing Spring Greens
Fast-growing greens like lettuce, spinach and arugula are also best direct sowed in one spot. These plants have very small root systems and transplanting can be tricky. Also, spinach is a very temperature sensitive crop, the transplant shock in temperature changes could kill the plant.
The Three Sisters & Vine Plants
Beans, peas and corn are also best direct sowed. Again, this comes down to their fragile root system and delicate stems.
You can start squash, cucumbers and melons indoors and transplant outside – I’ve done this plenty of times. However, they too suffer from transplant shock, stunted growth for a few days or weeks and these plants grow very large, very fast. Due to their viney growth habits, if started indoors too early and forced to grow in a small container it will stunt the plant and produce a poor harvest. Best practice is to direct sow these seeds in warm soil (after your last frost date).
Flowers
Sunflowers – my favourite type of flower, loves to be direct sowed in the late spring. The warmer the ground, the faster they will grow.
When to Direct Sow Seeds
It’s time to direct sow your seeds! Be sure to follow these steps:
- Direct sow seeds after soil reaches appropriate temperature (check your seed packets for the specific seed information). If you’re unsure how to determine this, dig down in your soil and feel with your bare hands how the soil feels. Is it cold and hard, still frozen? Or is it cool, movable, soft? Use a soil tester to check for you if you’d like.
- After danger of frost has passed for tender crops (this includes tomatoes, squashes, peppers, etc).
- Early spring or late summer for cool-season plants (kale, lettuce, peas, spinach, etc).
- Use a planting calendar based on your USDA zone (for us in Southern Ontario, that’s Zone 5).
- Consider successive sowing for extended harvests. This is something usually for crops that have to be pulled to harvest (ie. carrots, radishes).
How to Prepare Your Garden for Direct Sowing
This is a key step to prepare your crop for a successful season. Remove weeds and debris from the planting area or entire bed, less competition and risk of disease. Loosen the top few inches of soil for better seed contact, some people dislike ’tilling’ but from my experience, it’s effective and better for your beds and plants. Add compost or organic matter to enrich soil for healthier plants. Rake soil surface smooth and level. Mark rows or spacing according to seed instructions, use plant label garden sign.
For a more comprehensive guide on how to prepare your garden beds, check out this article.
How to Direct Sow Seeds Step-by-Step
Direct sowing seeds can be a very simple process – literally just throwing the seeds down and calling it a day. It’s always a good practice to follow the steps on your seed packet and do your best to have a sucessful germination. Here’s a step-by-step process.
- Read seed packet for depth and spacing. Remember, if something says sow 12″ apart, that means edge of bed, 6″ seed, 6″, seed, 6″, etc.
- Create shallow trenches or holes as directed.
- Sow seeds evenly and cover lightly with soil.
- Water gently to avoid displacing seeds, or water soil prior to sowing, this can make the covering process slightly harder.
- Label rows or areas for tracking growth using plant label garden sign
- Keep soil moist until seeds germinate, watering daily unless it rains outside.
- Once sprouted, no need to continue to water daily, 2-3 deep waterings per week should be enough for your garden bed. Always, always always test the soil if you’re unsure.
- Cover the open soil around the seedlings in mulch, be careful not to place mulch too close to the seedling. Mulching best practices can be found here.
- Only fertizile once the plants have grown larger and stronger.
- Be weary of pests like rabbits, deer, slugs, chipmucks, etc that love tender young plants. Protect your garden bed with a fence.
Tips for Successful Germination Outdoors
There’s a few tips and tricks to help direct sow seeds successfully. Minor, but they do work!
Soak large or hard coated seeds before planting – a great example of this is corn. It helps the internal genes of the seeds sprout though the softened shell and improve germination.
Use row covers to retain moisture, warmth and to protect the young seedlings from pests. Pests include birds, rabbits, deer and slugs and much more – protect your plants! Learn how to create an easy hoop house here.
Water regularly so the topsoil doesn’t dry out – mulching will help in this regard – here’s some mulching best practices. Watering your garden 2-3 times a week with a deep soak will help retain moisture and improve deep root growth.
Thinning your seedlings is the hardest but a very important task once they’ve sprouted. Not thinning creating overcrowed plants not able to thrive to their full potential. Still unsure? Check out this article on thinning seedlings.
Common Mistakes to Avoid with Direct Sowing
While direct sowing seeds is in concept a very easy thing to do, there are some mistakes that can be made that are determental to your successful season.
- Planting too early in cold or wet soil (again, read the seed packet and determine when you should be planting).
- Sowing seeds too deep or too shallow, a good practice if your packet doesn’t explain, sow your seed twice the length as the seed itself.
- Letting the soil dry out during germination, again, moisture is key here!
- Overcrowding—failure to thin seedlings properly, not enough means the plant can’t thrive.
- Not labeling rows, leading to confusion later. Use plant label garden sign – trust me, you’ll thank yourself later.
Direct Sowing vs. Indoor Seed Starting
There are pros and cons to each seed starting method. Direct sowing seeds is best for plants that don’t transplant well and for plants that have enough time in your growing season to reach full maturity. Ideally, everyone would direct sow everything, but that’s not realistic for long-term self sufficiency in colder climates.
Indoor seed starting is perfect for giving your plants the extra time they need to thrive during your growing season. While transplant shock does occur sometimes, most plants will rebound shortly thereafter.
The best strategy is combining indoor seed starting and direct sowing methods tailored to fit your gardens needs. For example, we direct sow spring crops in our greenhouse, but start seeds like tomatoes, peppers, basil, kale, onions, celery and more indoors before we can transplant into the greenhouse. This method works for our needs and we’re able to harvest tomatoes in Zone 5B by mid-June, opposed to the traditional August.
Direct Sowing Seeds Conclusion
Seed starting is always a rewarding process, whether you’re direct sowing or starting seeds indoors. Some plants need to be direct sowed so don’t be tricked into buying radishes or carrot seedlings from the nursery. When direct sowing, always ensure your seed soil is moist until sprouted and thin out the seedlings to give the best plants the highest probability of success.
I hope you enjoyed this article on direct seed starting! If you did make sure you check out the other seedling related articles here:
- How to Start Indoor Seedlings
- 15 Seed Starting Mistakes and How to Fix Them
- Leggy Seedlings and Thinning Plants: How to Ensure Healthy Plants
- Raised Garden Beds vs Container Gardening: Which is Better?
We also have plenty of growing guides, seed saving guides and our recipes. We are growing our website with more articles all the time, and we invite you to grow with us. If you have any questions about direct sowing seeds or would like to share some of your knowledge with us please leave a comment below. Happy Gardening!
