I planted zinnia, broccoli and onions seeds outside using the styrafoam cooler with a piece of plexiglass on top. I knew that once they germinate that I can't leave the top on but wasn't sure what I needed to do before that happens. Because I had that fear that they needed warmer temps, I've only planted a few so far. I'm going to plant some more but keep them inside for now. I didn't want to have to go through the trouble of taking them in/out later to get them use to the temps outside (stratification I think it is called?)

Dennis, I just want to say that I love your white garden idea. You know I love vegetable gardening, but my strong suit is still flower gardening. I do a fair amount of design work around the community and my favorite designs are always gardens designed with green and white. If you do entries at a garden show or state fair, I should think that a green and white veggie bed would be an award winner. Zipper Cream cowpeas have cream colored bean shells when they are ripe and ready to pick. And our southern Scuppernong grapes are a pale cream to yellow colored. (Don't know if they'd do as far north as you are.) Also, you might want to consider white variegated foliage. It seems to me that I have read of this in beans, but I can't remember where. There is definitely white variegated basil and white variegated mint (though, of course, that would be aggressive).

I'm guessing I got about an 80-90% germination rate, which is perfectly fine with me. They're all about a foot or taller now. My only problem currently is that my pickling cukes are invading them on the left side! I keep trying to tie those little strings the cukes send out to where they'll grow up instead of to the right towards the beans, but they're growing so fast, it's only slightly working. Anyways, hopefully i'll have some bean flowers in a few weeks. =) Updated picture of the Yellow Wax Bean bed on my gardening blog linked below. - Steve Here is a link that might be useful: Steve's Garden

Some flowers are very hard to start from seed and others are easy. I start most of my flowers from seed inside under lights in about the same way I start veggie seed. Unlike most veggie seeds, though, flower seeds vary widely in conditions needed to induce germination. Some are easy to grow from seed but many are challenging. Some flower seeds are exceptionally tiny and must be surface sown and this includes begonia, coleus and penta seed. Also, some of these--like begonias and pentas sprout into very tiny plants that can take up to 5 months to get large enough to transplant outside. (sigh) With seeds which are that tiny and which take so long to grow to a manageable size, I tend to just buy transplants instead of dealing with them. Then there are a the flower varieties whose seed require cold scarification--exposure to cold temperatures for a certain period of time (which varies per type) before they will sprout. Cleome, Kiss-Me-Over-The-Garden-Gate and echinacea are examples of this type of seed. For them, I usually put the seed packets inside zip-lock bags and write the date on the bag, so I can keep track of how long the seeds have been inside the fridge. Some of these WILL eventually sprout without cold scarification, but at low rates. Then there are the seeds whose seed coats are VERY hard, like bluebonnets and moonvine flowers, for example. For many of these, you can have trouble getting them to germinate unless you use one of several methods to break through that seed coat. Sometimes all you have to do is pre-soak the seed. For others, though, you have to cut through the seed coat with a knife or sandpaper or a nail file. And, for a few, pre-soaking them in a specific form of acid is the preferred way to break through that seed coat. Some flowers are exceptionally easy to start from seed, including zinnias, cosmos, salvias, nasturiums, sunflowers, salvias, black-eyed Susan vine, cypress vine, morning glories, cardinal climber vine, Mexican sunflowers (Tithonia), celosias, globe amaranth and hollyhocks. There are some seeds that do best when direct-sown, mostly because they dislike being transplanted OR need alternating periods of cold and hot temperatures to induce germination. These include poppies, Calfornia poppies, larkspur and most wildflowers. This year I have started many flowers from seed and most of these plants are either already in the ground or are being transplanted into the ground this week. These include "Queeny Purple", "Queeny Mix", "Summer Carnival" and "Old-Fashioned Single" hollyhocks, agastache, "Red Shield" Hibiscus, Dahlia "Bishop's Children", "Summer Pastels" and "Summer Berries" yarrow, Salvia "Whopper Lighthouse", and several other red-flower salvias (for the hummers) whose varieties I don't remember, rose mallow, gazania daisies, QIS mix globe amaranth, "Caribbean Crush" and "Caribbean Cocktail" nasturtiums, cassia alata, butterfly weed, ipomopsis, ipomoea palmata, a red-flowered Texas Bluebonnet called "Alamo Fire", the heat-loving "Laura Bush" and "Laura Bush Pink" petunias, and several kinds of daturas, including white-flowered single and double flowered ones, double yellow, double lavender and a single pink one that I think is not actually a datura but a brugmansia. There are probably others but I can't think of them at the moment. I still need to start others from seed, probably this week or next--zinnias, cosmos, Mexican sunflowers, morning glories, moonvine, purple hyacinth bean vine, and some plants that are grown for their foliage, like striped ornamental corn and castor beans. I keep raising flowers from seed and transplanting them outside over a long period of time. I usually get the last ones in the ground just before Memorial Day. (When you grow as many as I do, it can take a long time to get them all "done" and in the ground.) A lot of the flowers I have grown to transplant outside this year are either perennials or self-sowing annuals that reseed very reliably. I have grown a lot more than usual this year because the last 3 years have been hard on my exising flowers.....last year's rainy weather got a lot of them, and prior to that, the 2 years of severe drought were hard on them....so I have planted tons of stuff to revitalize several beds. Some flowers reseed so reliably, like poppies, larkspur, verbena bonariensis, daura metel and 4 o'clocks, that once you have them, you'll have them forever. Some herbs--chamomile is one that comes to mind and chives is another--reseed so freely they can become "weedy". As you can tell, I love raising flowers from seed--I just don't talk about them as much as I talk about veggies--because each one is different from the others--and I'd have to write forever to discuss each one's unique germination needs and growing methods. Sometimes you have to start your own from seed to have them at the right planting time in our climate. For me, this is especially true of cool-season flowers that I can start from seed in the summer and transplant into the ground in late summer for fall and winter blooms. This includes pansies, snapdragons and ornamental cabbage and kale. And, sometimes, you have to start your own flowers from seed in order to get something that is regionally adapted, weather-wise, and which is shunned by the nursery industry in general. The "Laura Bush" petunia varieties fall into this category. They are heat-loving varieties that often bloom, on and off, all summer long. They outlast the more commonly grown Wave petunias by a mile. Yet, they are almost impossible to find. So, I grow my own. I think it can be much harder to start flowers from seed, as opposed to how easy it is to start veggies. It has been trial-and-error for me over a couple of decades. I love doing it, though, as it gives me many flowers you can't even find as transplants. Do I still buy transplants? A few. When we bought our first home in Texas in 1984, I planted virtually everything from purchased transplants. Nowadays, it is the opposite--I grow almost everything from seed, but it took me a long time to get from buying all my flower transplants to growing them instead, and it evolved from my desire to have flowers I couldn't find as transplants. If, for example, you want to grow cosmos from transplants, you'll usually only find a limited number of varieties as transplants--Sonata and Double Click are two that come to mind. Last year, I purchased a Cosmos collection from Wildseed Farms that had 16 packets of different cosmos varieties in it. So, that's one example of how growing your own from seed gives you more options. Zinnias are the same way. There must be 40 to 50 types of zinnias you can grow from seed, but when you purchase transplants, you are limited to less than a double different varieties. If you have questions about specific varieties, let me know, and I'll try to answer them. Dawn