How To Spot And Avoid A Crappy Seedling by Northwest Edible Life

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How To Spot And Avoid A Crappy Seedling

~:: Northwest Edible Life ::~

How To Spot And Avoid A Crappy Seedling by Northwest Edible Life

So, it’s the time of year out here in the Maritime Northwest where periodic nice days start to happen. A few legitimately sunny Spring days in Seattle send thoughts to the veggie patch, and gardeners everywhere start running to buy plant starts.

This can become a caveat emptor situation pretty fast, because baby plants are, in the best of circumstances, delicate and fragile things. In poorer circumstances, you’d be better served taking $4 and burning it than buying a crappy veg start, because then at least you would only be wasting your money, not your money and your time.

Because let’s face it: you are buying starts to save time. You are either jump-starting the season (saving time in ground) or delegating the task of raising your own transplants (saving time beforehand).

So the last thing you want is for the extra money you are spending on starts as compared to seed tonot save you time – either because the start itself fails or because the plant is a poor choice to transplant anyway.

ABOUT ERICA: What happens when a professional chef turns into a gardening fanatic? Can ‘homemaker’ be a political statement? How self-sufficient can a family be on one-third of an acre in suburban Seattle? Where is the right balance between living cheap and living well? Can one ever have too many rutabagas? How much lawn do growing kids really need when there are fruit trees to be planted? Erica blogs about gardening, cooking, urban homesteading and living slow-ish in the Maritime Northwest.