With visions of beautiful, juicy tomatoes, peppers and broccoli dancing through your head you’ve carefully selected the finest seeds. Time to grab the garden gloves and your trusty spade and get planting! 

Great idea, but there’s a little more to it. Starting your seeds rather than just putting them in the ground can be just the boost they need.

You’ll want to start seeds in clean, sterile seed-starting mix made from peat and coconut coir. This helps keep pathogens from ruining your work before you’ve even started. At this point the young plant has all the energy it needs from the seed itself. Once the seedlings have broken the soil and produced their first set of leaves then it’s time to transfer them to regular soil. At this point the plant starts to need nutrients from the soil to keep growing.

As far as temperature goes start warm (roughly 75f) to give the plants a jumpstart and then move them to cooler areas (around 65f) to prevent them from getting thin and leggy. They’ll need plenty of light, so if possible place them in a south facing window. Don’t have a great window? No problem. Here are some solutions for good lighting.

Timing is the key here. Check the back of the seed packet for instructions as to when to start. Too early and your plants may outgrow their container before you can move them outside. Too late and your new seedlings may be choked out by competitors before they’ve had a chance to establish themselves.

Starting your seeds from scratch is a great way to save money, especially if you’re planning a larger garden. For the price of one plant you’d get at a garden center, you can get a dozen or even a hundred seeds. 

Sure, it’s easier and quicker to buy sprouted plants from a garden center, but you have no idea where those plants have been. Starting the seeds yourself gives them their best chance to reach their full potential so you get exactly what you want.

It should come as no surprise that a great garden starts with great seeds. Not all seeds are created equal though. In general you want you stick with organic seeds whenever possible. They’re more expensive, but they’re also the best way to know you’re getting strong seeds without any additives you don’t want to ingest later. If you plan to save seeds for next year, you’ll also want to avoid many hybrids since they are sterile. 

Try to steer clear of GMO seeds. GMO stand for Genetically Modified Organism, which means they’re not a natural variety, but instead spliced together in a lab. 

You’ll probably see chemically treated seeds for sale as well. There are pros and cons with these seeds. After all, one of the main reasons people grow their own gardens is to avoid the chemicals found in supermarket produce.  However, a chemically treated seed will likely be more resistant to common garden pests and be easier to grow.

Heirloom seeds are a popular choice. Like the nobility of yore, these seeds come from long established lineages. They’ve been proven to work over the years, so you know exactly what to expect from them. 

Once you’ve decided what types of seeds work for you, you may want to save them for next year. It’s a little bit more work, but many gardeners find the extra effort worth it. Here’s a handy guide to see if saving seeds is the right choice for you. 

As an additional note, what works well for seeds works even better for bulbs, whether they’re onions or tulips.

Seeds are the foundation of that garden you’ve always wanted, so use this guide to help your garden down the right path.  

With spring rolling steadily in, a person’s thoughts naturally turn to gardening. There are also a flood of magazines and online ads showing you beautiful, perfectly arranged flower beds and fat, juicy vegetables as far as the eye can see. 

There’s nothing wrong with getting excited about planting season, but it helps to keep your expectations realistic. Even if you have the space, you don’t want to plant more garden than you can handle. A simple garden still requires a good bit of work, and that work is a lot more exciting in the cool spring breezes of early May than in the blistering sun of late July.

There is also cost to consider. Gardening is relatively inexpensive compared to many hobbies, but there are costs involved. The bigger and more elaborate the garden, the greater the hit on your pocketbook.

Before you even put spade to dirt, you want to make a realistic assessment of your gardening project. How much do you want to grow? How much time do you have to devote to it? What are you willing to spend to make it happen? Consider the space you have. What do you have to work with and how much effort will it take to make it into the garden of your dreams?

Getting overambitious will only lead to frustration. However, if you plan it right, a garden can be a beautiful patch of earth that’s all yours, and gives back to you year after year.

Winter’s icy grip is finally breaking, and spring is almost here! Spring means warmer weather, getting outside and of course— gardening! In our Spring Series on gardening, we’re going to take a look at how to make a garden work for you. “Gardening?” you may ask as you look around your condo or studio apartment. 

Absolutely. 

You can actually grow vegetables just about anywhere— a deck right outside your backdoor, a patio or even a balcony. If you don’t have actual ground available to you, no problem. You can still turn that sunny breakfast nook into something you can use. Container gardening is easy and simple, and you’d be surprised how much you can truly grow. 

It will require a little bit of planning. Vegetables, like any plant, need a healthy supply of light, fertilizer and water. When you have a small space, all three can present challenges. Here are some ways to overcome them.

You’ll also want to carefully plan what you want to grow. Sure, it might be nice to have towering rows of corn or sunflowers that reach for the sky, but it’s not always practical. Look for plants that are compact growers such as pole beans or peppers. Also, some plants do quite well when they have close neighbors. Others are like a crotchety old hermit and like their space.

A garden is a great way to make the most of spring, and it’s a hobby that everyone can enjoy. If you don’t have acres of wide-open fields a small garden might be just the thing to liven up your living space.

In 1913, the American public got its first look at Form 1040, the basic form we all use to file our individual federal income taxes. Over the years since then, the form hasn’t changed as much as you might think. One thing that has changed is how we file it. Back in the day you would go down to the local post office to get the appropriate forms before spending a happy evening with a calculator, a pen and a good supply of scratch paper. 

As you might expect everything is done electronically these days. The IRS strongly prefers it and many states require it. In fact, the post office no longer keeps paper 1040 booklets. 

Electronically filing your returns has many advantages. Not only do you save on postage, but you don’t have to worry about the return being lost in the mail. As well as being convenient, electronically returns are faster and more accurate. They’re also processed first. Every year the IRS handles millions of returns. Electronic returns are completed first since most of them are reviewed by computer. Paper returns? Well, they go right to the bottom of the stack, meaning your refund could be delayed for months. 

In short, electronic returns are faster, more accurate and more importantly: filing electronically means you get your refund back faster. Sure, some traditions are worth keeping, but it’s time to leave pen and paper filing in the 20^th century. 

Next week we celebrate President’s Day, originally created in 1885 in recognition of our 1st President, George Washington. The “Washington’s Birthday” name changed to “Presidents’ Day” in 1971 when it became one of the “Monday holidays” designed to give the nation’s workers more three-day weekends. 

Just for fun, here is some Presidential trivia:

• Harry S. Truman was the poorest President, worth less than $1 million dollars in 2010 dollars.
• John F. Kennedy was the richest by far, living off a personal $10 million trust fund, and worth well over $1 billion in 2010 dollars.
• Calvin Coolidge grew up in a Vermont farmhouse without electricity or telephone. In fact, that’s where he was when he found out he had succeeded to the Presidency, when Warren G. Harding died unexpectedly.
• Abraham Lincoln grew up very poor and was criticized for marrying into the wealthy Todd family prior to his Presidency.
• After Ulysses S. Grant lost his bid for a third term, nearly broke, he invested in a firm created by his successful son and a partner. The partner ultimately swindled all the investors, including Grant, leaving him destitute. 
• President Rutherford B. Hayes and his temperance-supporting wife “Lemonade Lucy” maintained an alcohol-free White House after a single reception where they served wine. His critics accused him of being a tightwad, so he used the money he saved (which came out of his personal funds) from not serving alcohol, on more lavish entertainments. 

Enjoy your holiday week!