Released March 27, 2008

SALINA, Kan. - For some gardeners, growing plants from seed is the ultimate satisfaction.

Chip Miller isn´t one of them.

"Like the person who didn´t buy green bananas, I´ve felt my time is growing too short for such long-range plans," said Miller, a horticulturist with Kansas State University Research and Extension.

He´s got so many leftover seeds in storage, however, that he´s thinking of trying again this year.

"All you have to do to figure out when to plant seeds is just count backwards," Miller said. "But, you also need to know when, on average, the odds no longer favor your getting another freeze."

To decide whether to plant seeds indoors or outside, risk-taking gardeners often use their average frost-free date - the day their area usually has 50-50 odds for more freezing cold. (Salina´s is April 17.)

"If you don´t know that date, you can just call your nearest county Extension office," Miller said.

Cautious gardeners won´t plant outdoors, though, until their 95 percent frost-free date, when they have 5 percent odds for another freeze. The Kansas Weather Data Library maintains that date for weather stations statewide on the Web at http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/wdl/freeze2.htm. (Salina´s is May 7.)

Miller said most seed packets provide several other facts needed for the backward counting:

• The number of weeks of indoor growth required to raise seedlings ready to transplant outdoors.

• How many weeks before or after last frost that seed and/or transplants can go into the garden.

• How many days that food-producing plants need to produce harvest-ready fruits or vegetables.

"Sometimes that last fact determines whether you need to start seed indoors," Miller said. "But, sometimes gardeners just want to produce their own transplants, rather than spend money to buy some."

Miller´s fact sheet on what´s needed to start plants indoors successfully is on the Web at http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/ (search for "2007 HortNews 118.pub").

-30-

http://www.oznet.ksu.edu/news/

Contact: Mary Lou Peter-Blecha, mlpeter@ksu.edu