Many gardening enthusiasts feel more like true gardeners when they start their plants from seeds and watch them grow to blossom, bloom and bear fruit, vegetables or flowers. It puts them more in tune with the awesomeness of nature.
The article below is taken from the Burpee website. It gives lots of details for a beginner gardener and some interesting and helpful tips for the more experienced gardener.
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It’s possible to have a fine vegetable garden by buying young plants. But you will have a much wider range of possibilities if you start your own plants from seeds indoors.
Not only is it much cheaper, but you can buy seeds for many more varieties than you will find for sale as plants. That will allow you to experiment with more different flavors, shapes and colors, and to harvest your favorite edibles over a longer period by planting varieties that mature at different times.
Why is it necessary to start plants before it’s warm outdoors? Well, for some species, it’s not (see this article on direct-sowing seeds).
But many of our favorite flowers and vegetables, including tomatoes, peppers, squash and beans, evolved in places such as Central America and Mexico where they had many more hours of sunlight in their growing season that they can get in most of the United States. Their seeds will not sprout in soil that is still cold in spring and the fruits need more sun to ripen than is available in the waning days of autumn.
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To read the entire article go over to the Burpee website.