In the midst of the summertime heat, we often overlook the fact that now is the best time to plant seeds for fall harvests. Some easy veggies to start now include beets, bush beans, kale, lettuce, Swiss chard, broccoli and carrots. Veggie seeds started now typically need an extra 2 weeks to mature, due to fall’s shortening days.
Standard advice is to plant any summer sown seed slightly deeper than spring sown counterparts to counteract the excessive heat and quick drying soils. Some gardeners provide a bit of shade to moderate these issues. Because of soil warmth, seeds will germinate more quickly that those put out in the cool of the spring time.
Now is also a good time to sow seeds of biennials such as Foxgloves, Sweet William, Forget Me Nots, and some campanulas. This summer I am trying to germinate two different white and one apricot Foxgloves and some blue peach leaved bellflowers. All have very very small seeds and one typically sows a lot of them to get any to geminate. I found a company on line, Swallowtail Garden Seeds, that sells pelleted Foxgloves seeds. So, I have purchased 1,000 seeds of the apricot for $2.49, and I bought a total of 50 pelleted seeds of the two white shades for $5.50. Pelleted seeds are easier to handle but makes the investment that much more dear, still, much cheaper than buying plants. The big question is how many will germinate?