Dig up some dirt and throw down some seed

Starting seed indoors is a great way to give your plants a head start on the growing season. Plants that are typically purchased from a nursery and planted directly, like tomatoes, peppers, and cabbage can be started indoors to save some money. Other plants can be started as well, although some plants like carrots are best seeded directly just due to the number of plants.

This year, we started several varieties of tomatoes, peppers, cabbage, broccoli, eggplant, and some other obvious choices. We also went out on a limb and decided to start some of our onions in containers, so they can be transplanted as young plants into the garden, instead of planting sets or sowing directly.

With many varieties of onions needing 85-90 days to maturity, and our sometimes short growing season here in northern South Dakota, starting from seed can give us a little insurance against a surprise shortened growing season. Also, onions grown from seed get larger and grow better than onions started from sets, so it made sense all the way around.

I decided to use an old plastic container that was about 2 inches deep, and filled it with a mixture of seed starting mix, and some soil from our garden. Because onion seedlings require very little space, I was able to fit quite a few seeds into the container, and in retrospect I could have planted even more. Seeds were scattered on top of the soil, with a very light covering of soil to cover them. 1/16 inch or less is just fine. The first few times I watered, I misted the soil with a spray bottle, as potting soil mixture has a tendency to float up and move around easily when water is poured onto it. Even though I used a spray bottle, I still watered quite thoroughly. This disturbs the germinating seeds less. Because onions seeds are sown directly on the surface or just barely covered, they need to be watered frequently so the top layer of soil doesn't dry out, as this will kill the germinating plant.

Our onions emerged about 5 days after sowing, and were placed under a grow light at that point. Eight days after sowing, we have several containers that look like this!