This year I’ve decided to overhaul my garden and I’m going to be growing some new foods. I’ve noticed over the years that seedlings from the big home improvement stores and nurseries have gotten SO expensive. I decided I would go back to starting some seedlings at home, something I’ve done in the past with my kids. I never seem to think about this early enough in the season, but there’s still some to get those late spring and summer seedlings started, even in mid-March.

First I went to the Almanac.com to find out what my last frost day is by putting in my zip code. In Central VA, our Frost date is around April 13.

Then I found this great little website called the Empress of Dirt and found out what I could start now based on the approximate frost date in my region. Since mine is closest to April 15th, I found out that I still had time to plant those seeds in group 4 and 5. I picked about 8 different foods on this list which I found at Home Depot. I found a few varieties of tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, melons, and some kale. I also found a few seeds I could sow right into the ground soon like carrots, beets, spinach, radishes and arugula.

For my indoor seeds I grabbed some little compostable pots and seed starting soil and planted a few seeds in each pot. This is a great little project to do with the kids. They can lightly water or spray the plants and watch them grow. In several weeks then transplant them to soil or pots outside!