For starters and in full transparency, I don’t live up North. However, I do watch a lot of homesteading videos about gardening. My favorite female gardener uses this guy to get some of her ideas when she’s trying something different so I check out his channel every now and then. He lives in Michigan and deals with a lot of snow plus he sells packets of seeds. Well, the vlog that showed up in my feed is how to Winter sow your garden. He isn’t fond of starting his seeds indoors and he’s telling how to start your snow-covered garden with direct sowing. IF you have about 10–12 minutes to spare, you might want to check his method out. It’s warm enough here so I can direct sow with only a minimal amount of worry, but his method could possibly have given me another few weeks had I thought about it at the time. Good luck with your planting

Tomatoes and peppers are two things difficult to grow from seed. When to start depends on the plant type.
Melons are fun to grow because they start well I doors, transplant easily, then grow like gangbusters. However, they require both male and female to bear fruit so enough must be grown to hopefully get at least one of each.

Some seeds need special starts like scraping the hull, or sprouting between moist paper towels.
Therr are helpful videos, but not always specific to what someone needs. I wanted help to grow kiwi fruit, but all I found was in Europe, except one using plant starts instead of seeds.

I hope you have good luck with your garden. It is so rewarding when they go well.
I have had good luck with using yogurt containers for indoor starts.
Sunflowers are fun, because they get eight inches tall a couple of days after they sprout. The very big kind produce such a great batch of yummy seeds.
Potatoes are fun because it is like finding buried treasure. You see the plants growing, and one day you dig it up, and there’s a pile of potatoes hiding there.

From seed to fruit, tomatoes require constant tender loving care. Bugs, weather, watering, it is like raising a child. If it goes well, it is great, but even birds will sometimes peck at tomatoes for the seeds, or bugs which happen to be on them.

A good friend to gardens is a praying mantis. They eat every kind of bug besides aphids, but they are friendly to people. They are not plant eaters at all.

I know how to do this, I’ve been doing it for years. I was hoping other jellies would tell me what they are doing, we can share stories.

I start my tomatoes and peppers from seed often, I only buy starts if I find specific kinds I can’t get seeds for.

Okay, well, you have my story now.

I live in Tacoma. I start pumpkin, corn, melon and tomato seeds in March in my sun room.

@gondwanalon I miss the climate we had in Seattle when I lived there, and the bigger lot I had. I could have an outstanding garden. I don’t do corn here (my lot is too small) and I miss it. Have an ear for me this summer!

@canidmajor

What’s the difference between your present climate and the climate in Seattle?

Every April I say, “dang it, I should have started my basil seeds indoors in February!”

He writes on February 11th

@Brian1946 i live in New England now, when I was in Seattle the general weather was softer. The winters didn’t get nearly so cold and the summers not so hot and humid. We could start our gardens outside much earlier.

I left around 25 years ago, I 7nderstand it’s changed a bit.

What are “climes”?

@canidmajor I’ll share the corn and other fruit with my neighbors if I can keep the hungry deer and Brush Rabbits out of the garden. They’re good at getting in and devouring nearly everything.

@ragingloli Clime = climate. The words are interchangeable.