I just wanted to mention a few things about starting your seeds outdoors in the garden this early.

As I have mentioned before, if you have hoop houses you can start your seeds outside this early. Especially with this nice weather we are having!

There is something to keep in mind though – Most seeds need temperatures in the 60’s to 80’s to germinate. If you have plastic over your hoop houses and it is reasonably air-tight you can expect to reach that if the outside temperature is in the 50’s and the sun is shining on your houses. In fact, it might get much hotter than that in there!

If your outside temps are not quite that high yet, I would suggest germinating indoors and then transplanting as soon as the plants get their second leaves. (You could transplant them as soon as they are up, but if you wait a little bit you might have a better survival rate.)

Once the seedlings have germinated and are green above ground you need to really watch that temperature and make sure it doesn’t get too hot and fry your newly germinated seeds!

So – Keep your hoop house warm/hot until the seeds germinate and then just keep it above freezing. Most plants do well in the 45-55 degree range.

I suggest getting a thermometer and watching that temp. You can record and compare the inside temp with the outside temp, and if it is sunny or not and you will have a good idea what temp it is without having to actually check. I keep the front and back of my houses down with bricks so I can remove them and roll the plastic back to vent on hot days. I have the sides stapled down so they are somewhat air-tight.

I recently bought a remote thermometer which I have not set up yet, but I am excited to use it. It has a temperature/weather station you keep inside, it also monitors the low and high and records it for 7 days! It also has a probe which I intend to place outside, then I will get an outside and an inside reading and I can see what’s going on in there without ever having to go outside!

Thanks for stopping by!