 Now it is time to plant the seeds and you have two main ways of planting. That is direct sowing or planting your seeds directly into your garden or beds or ground. And then you've got transplanting, which is planting the seeds into pots and trays, letting them grow for some time and then transplanting them. This video is particularly focused on direct sowing your seeds into the ground. We're gonna share which ones to do that with, how to do it and to start, we have a very important tip. And that is split the pack in half. When you first get started, there's gonna be a little bit of a learning curve and that's cool. It's just a learned experience like everything else, tying your shoes or whatnot. And if you plant everything all at once, it's possible, maybe even likely, that you're gonna have quite a few failures. And so by splitting the pack in half, you are going to make sure that you're gonna get a harvest out of this. So we have more than enough seeds in this pack to not plant them all at once and fill all of your beds. So cut it in half. That way you have a little bit of a plan B to back yourself up with if anything happens. Absolutely. Of course, you have to know when to plant your seeds and for new gardeners, that can be kind of anxiety. Like what's too early? What's too late? So we wanna give you the basics on that. And the ultimate answer is that you need to keep things as localized as possible. So even saying something as generic or broad as if you live in Florida or if you live in North Carolina, they're gonna still vary. So at least focusing in on state level, if not even more precise, is going to give you a better idea of what your frost date is, what your general start times are for seeding into the ground or potentially transplanting. So I always recommend going to your extension services. Every state has one. You can just simply type in North Carolina extension service, Florida extension service, New York extension service. All states are going to have one. And they are a mashup of all of the colleges in those states and their data that they have for when to start seeds on all of that information as far as starting your garden. So try to check out a local resource as much as possible. And that will give you specific information that we could never hone in on well enough in this video to cover the entire United States. Yeah, and another really great local resources. Just search for a garden planting calendar for your region. There's a lot of small gardeners, local gardeners who have created those resources. And those are incredible because they will tell you often like, even within the window a few weeks when is the best time to plant in your region. And with that being said, not all of these plants are actually going to be started at the same time. So in your seed pack, you have things like kale and like the Brassica family, chives and the onion family and green onions. Those are a lot more cold hearty than say from the seed pack, your basil or your dill. Those are gonna need more warmth and higher soil temperatures to germinate. So even if we were to just say for this state start in this month, it's not gonna be true for every single thing. There's gonna be a couple of weeks to a couple of months timeframe where you start maybe two or three and then wait a few weeks, start a couple more plants and so on and so forth. So there's going to be a little bit of an ebb and flow as the seasons start to warm and the temperatures change. Yes. And as far as one of the other basic things is how much sunlight do these plants need? And I know when I first got started, I was looking at every single plant, how much sun each one needed. But every plant in this pack basically has the same sunlight requirements. And it's about, it's a full day's sun, about eight hours in most of the regions across what we call the United States. And then so that's gonna include New York and Wisconsin and the Midwest and the Northeast and the Northwest. Now, so you're looking at about eight hours a day of full sun. Now, in some of these Southern climates that are much warmer, which is Florida, where we are right now, and then for example, parts of Texas, you can do more like the four to six hours a day of full sun. So that's, you know, it's as simple as that. These all have about the same sunlight requirements and you can design this all based on that, that one idea of eight hours a day of full sun in most places. Now that you know those few pieces of important and basic information before planting the seeds, it's time to actually plant the seeds. And the first step is going to be if you have mulched your soil, if you're working in ground or anything like that is to remove that top layer. So the mulch or the leaf litter or whatever is in your environment, you're going to want to get the soil that you're actually planting into exposed. The mulch does not count as far as soil depth is concerned and depending on the seeds, it could actually hinder growth. So you do want to make sure that you have your soil exposed before you start planting anything. Now that you have your bed prepared, the question is how deep do these seeds go into your soil? And there's a basic guideline, a basic rule of thumb to follow. And that's that you plant these seeds twice as deep as the soil. So if you have really tiny seeds, like your herb mix, those are tiny. You know that they go just twice as deep as the soil, which is close to nothing. And then you can see the kale, they're bigger. So those are going to go a little deeper. And then radishes, those are even bigger. And then we don't have beans, but you can see the size of beans, those are substantially bigger. So if you keep that theory in mind and that depth, you're going to see, once you get your seed pack and open it up, that most of these are pretty much going to be either surface sown, which basically means literally just sprinkled on top of the soil and maybe gently padded down or a little tiny bit of soil on top. And then there's going to be some that are going to be very shallow, like maybe a quarter inch deep. And you're going to use your finger, create a nice shallow divot, but that's it. There is going to be, with your seed pack and the plants that you guys have gotten, there's no sticking your finger down into the soil, halfway up to your knuckle, that's too deep. So we're going to keep everything here nice and shallow and right on the surface. And we're going to go ahead and show you how to do that with the, there's a couple different ways we're going to do that. One is by making indentations into the soil with our finger and then also making a little trench and then also by directly sowing. So we're going to actually show you how to do that. What we've done to make this easy for you is we've grouped together the different seeds as far as the depth. So 10 of them can be done this first way with the divots or the trenches. That's all of them except the herb mix and the flower base. So when you are looking to plants, you can simply create a divot with your finger. You're going to take your finger on top of the exposed soil and just kind of gently wiggle it back and forth. We're not burying your finger. We're not going deep or anything like that. All we need is simply a little bowl to hold the seeds for you. So you can create, depending on what you're planting this facing, your divots and then take the seed. And generally speaking, if you're doing divots like this, that's going to be the ultimate plant spacing. So just two, three seeds, very small pinch in each little divot is all you need to make sure that it gets the germination that you're looking for. You put them right into this little bowl and then we're going to gently cover them up. Now, if they want to do, they could do as little as one seed if they really wanted to be conservative with the seeds. If you're maximizing it out and you really want to be conservative, you can put one seed. You may not have 100% germination. It's never guaranteed. So if you're trying to be conservative, but maybe a halfway point, two seeds, maybe three seeds per spot, ensures that you get the plant where you want it. You're not broadcasting your whole pack out, but you know you're going to get what you need. So now how do they cover it up? So you're going to just gently move the soil back in place so you don't have to press, pack anything like that, not necessary. We're just gently covering it back up so that they are not exposed to sunlight and that's all there is to it. So now I'm going to go ahead and show you the similar system, but it's making a little trench divot instead. So just taking my finger, dragging it across the soil and I've got a little trench there. Now, in case you forgot to open these, the best way to do it is just slide along the zipper with your finger. I'm going to pour out about half of the carrots. I'm doing carrots as the example and now I'm just going to scatter those in here. And I personally am really trying to use these conservatively, so not even half would go into a space that big. So I've got the little trench. Now I'm just going to go ahead and cover that up. So the other half of the equation or the other way to plant is called surface sowing and that is literally sowing or planting the seeds on the soil surface. And I know as a beginner gardener, it can be really hard to grasp that. We think that these seeds need to be planted deep and have soil on top of them, but some seeds are actually only going to germinate with sunlight. There are lots of seeds that have evolved to need to be on the soil surface. Your flower mix is designed or is enough seed to plant a one square foot area, which we have here. So this entire seed pack is going to be sprinkled into an area one by one. So if you take it in your hand, you're going to pinch it and you don't want to just put it all in one spot. Think about using salt and pepper to season a dish. You're going to want to sprinkle it throughout the entire area, just on the soil surface. So you're going to kind of gently work back and forth over it. If you see an area that didn't end up with any seed, double back to it and just gently sprinkling these seeds into place right on top of the soil surface. Now this is with the theory or the concept that your soil is loose. If you've just purchased it or bagged or whatever, it's already gonna be like that. But if you are working in native soil, perhaps and you have a very like heavy clay soil or something, if your fingers don't move through the soil, then loosen it up before you do this, but it's still sitting on top of the soil surface. And that is all there is to it with surface sowing. If it's a breezy day, if you're expecting some heavy rains at most, you can take a pinch of soil, a small handful like this and gently scatter it on top. You're not burying them. It just kind of gives it a little bit of weight or friction so that they don't wash out or blow away. That's all there is to it for surface sowing. Now one little thing that I'll add is that there are cilantro seeds in here, which are on the little bit of the larger side. And I will go ahead and just poke those cilantro seeds down in a little bit. So there were two in here because those are some bigger seeds. What do you think about that? Yep, they can be, they'll still germinate. You'll notice that they'll start coming up. And if you want, you can always cover them on the back end a little bit too, just to give them a bit of extra soil. But yeah, you can go either way before or after. So to give you an example, we'll take arugula. This can be done like we showed in the trench way or in the divot way. If you're doing it in a trench, you can do about 30 seeds per foot. So you would measure out a foot, you would put about 30 seeds in your hand, and then you would sprinkle them in. Or you can do the divots. And for these, you would spread these out about every few inches. You'd say every three or four inches? Three to four inches, yep. And it's gonna depend on what you want from that plant as well, right? So if you wanna be able to do a little bit of a cut and come again, where they stay smaller for like, you know, the box mixes, salad greens mixes, baby tender leaves. He might plant a little bit closer together if you're looking for something that's a little bit more immature, larger leaves, and you would plant it a little further apart. And if you wanna really maximize this pack, like if this is all you have, then you'd wanna generally go with the spacing them further apart so you get way more out. The baby greens, you can imagine how much greens you get off of a baby kale versus a huge kale. So follow that, follow the spacing further apart if you really wanna maximize the pack. And you can get all of the seed spacing on the step-by-step guide. Now, I'd really like to stress that one of the most common mistakes is people just not seeing that this seed, that each of these seeds has the potential to turn into big plants. And there's just such a common tendency to just so overplant. And what happens is, you aren't getting the most out of your seeds, but you end up with them so packly tied together that you end up having a lot more work to do later with thinning them. And then often you don't get around to thinning them. And then you end up with them being competing with each other so tied together that you never really even get a yield. So remember that although these seeds are tiny, you really wanna do follow the step-by-step guide which has the spacing. The spacing is key to get the yield. Yes, especially when you're looking to increase and maximize your production. Having plants fighting for space and water and light, things are gonna die out, they're gonna produce less for you. And it's just a waste, it's not ideal. It's more work for you or for less reward. So space it out and you don't have to worry about any of that. Some of these seeds you're going to want to direct so, some of them you're going to want to transplant and some of them can be done either way. So this information is laid out in the step-by-step guide but I'm gonna share that with you here as well. As far as your direct sown, your root vegetables. Root vegetables, you always want to direct so. So that's your carrots, your radish and your turnips and then your flour mix as well. Those four you're always going to direct so and not transplant. Now we have a category which can be direct sown or transplanted. That is your alliums, your onion and your chive. That's your arugula, your mustard and your dill. So these five can be either direct sown or transplanted. I would generally recommend directly sowing these unless you're trying to get a head start on your season. If a head start on your season isn't an issue then these are gonna be most efficient to direct so versus transplanting out. And then lastly, this is our transplants. So our herbs, we definitely wanna transplant and we can actually separate out the three different herbs in there to be able to grow those effectively. You have your basil, definitely want to plant those in the pots or trays and transplant and then your kale. Kale can be direct but you're really gonna get the best usage out of this pack by transplanting these. They take up a lot more space than the others. Now it's time to water and this is a critical step because if you forget in this early stage when it doesn't have a deep root system or anything like that, you could very likely kill off your plants. So staying on top of watering until you have germination and then slowly backing off later is really, really important. When you're watering, especially when you're doing direct seeding and things haven't germinated, you really wanna make sure that you have some sort of diffuser, whether it's a watering can with like the holes in it or if you're using a hose, if you have one of those watering wands or some sort of diffuser on the hose. If you have a direct stream into the soil, you're gonna wash out all of the seeds that you just planted. They could go too deep, they could get washed up, they'll go into a pile. It's gonna cause issues. So with the hose, there's like mist setting, cone setting or either of those. The mist is gonna be ideal. Some of them aren't that refined but as long as there's some sort of droplets as opposed to a stream or a jet, that's what we're looking for. When you water the seeds, it's important to keep things evenly moist but not drown them. So if you need to water a little bit, wait a minute, water a little bit more, wait a minute. What we don't wanna do is create this huge puddle or pooling on the seeds because that's when things start to shift around. So when you're watering, you just do a light quick water with a diffused setting. You can see nothing's really pooling or washing. It immediately soaks into the soil. That's what we're looking for. If you think that quick little go wasn't quite enough to keep things moist, you can go back one more time but if you did it all at once and you start getting a big pooling effect, that's when things shift. So do you think that was enough water? I would go one more time. Okay. And this is soaking it in like a sponge. We want, because these have not germinated, we're really technically only concerned at this point about the top, maybe half inch or so of soil. They don't have a root system that goes any deeper. So we're not trying to get these, you know, six inch deep waterings or eight inch deep waterings at this point because everything's sitting right at the surface. And it's a vulnerable time because you don't have mulch covering the soil. It's exposed. So you're gonna water generally twice a day, what would you say for new seeds? If you have the time, it is ideal. Morning, late afternoon or early evening watering twice a day is ideal. If that's out of your capacity, make sure it is in the morning as opposed to the afternoon because that's gonna have to carry it through the whole rest of the day. Keeping the soil moist is the key. Now, keeping the soil moist, you're gonna get seeds that are going to germinate. And so you might wonder, how long is it gonna take before you start to actually see things growing? For the seeds in this pack, your germination rate is generally gonna be between two to three days and up to about two weeks. Some of them are faster to germinate than others. You know, some of the, what would you say are the fastest to germinate? I tend to see the radishes. Yeah, radishes are super fast. It's probably the first thing that's gonna pop up. Mustard and arugula are super fast to germinate. And longer germination would be like your dill. The onion probably is a little slower. Basil tends to take longer. Yeah, it's gonna depend on temperature and everything, but if it's been to three weeks and you don't see germination, it's time to maybe take a look at that other half of the pack you saved. Yes, replant in that case. So the guide online has germination times for each of the seed, a window of how long generally the seeds take to germinate. So there you have it, how to directly plant the seeds into the garden and how to care for them, how to know when they should be popping up. And in the next video, we are diving into transplanting. The plants that you want to plant out into pots and trays that you're going to transplant into the garden later.