Just to be a contrarian ... I start these in 4" cups and transplant. My rationale is simple. I have cutworms in my soil, and I simply have to protect seedlings when they emerge. If I direct seed, it's sometimes not completely obvious where the plant will emerge. Especially after rain, seeds can move around underground. If I transplant, I know exactly where to put my collars.

That being said, when you remove these plants from their cup, there are roots all over the place and it is clear that there will be some transplant stress. But I've hardly ever lost a plant doing it this way. Never seen any evidence of stunting either.

I also start them in pots mostly because of cutworms. Once they are a good size to transplant the cutworms don't seem to bother them. I have never had a problem with transplanting them.

The best thing Marti it to try both ways and see which works best for you. That way you have it covered.

Dave

Another tack is just to throw down some cutworm deterrent. Dust the mound with some carbaryl and that would probably keep the cutworms at bay while the seeds germinate. Diatomaceous earth might work as well. That would save some trouble with managing containers.

Oh, geez! Carbaryl is Sevin. From what I have learned a gardener has the responsibility to use IPM when gardening.

I use it when I need to on the soil. And I usually don't. In my soil, which is alkaline, the half-life to hydrolysis is about a week. But it works a treat on cutworms. It's not like I'm dusting animals or eating the stuff, and I'd never use it near my creek. My bees never see it.

FWIW, carbaryl is an accepted high-value IPM pesticide for cutworms -

http://www.ipm.ucdavis.edu/PMG/r302300511.html

Maybe it is. But the purpose of IPM is to start with the least aggressive/non-chemical first.

Unless you have a tragically short season I would direct sow. It's simpler, and you can save room indoors for other stuff that really needs to be started early like tomatoes and peppers. I guess if cutworms are that big of a problem, then it makes sense, though, I personally have never had that big of an issue with them.

Like Dave said, though, this a crop that is easy to try both ways because of how quick they are. If your transplants don't work out, chances are you will still have more than enough season to direct sow them. The past couple years I have waited until late June or even early July to plant summer squash, and still got plenty.

I hear ya, zzackey, but cutworms don't damage plants, they decapitate and kill them. So by the time you decide to use a more aggressive chemical, you may have lost a lot of your plants. Let me be clear. I garden largely organically, but I'm not religious about it. My concern is health and environmental safety, and if you don't have any other ways of assessing that safety, I guess organic is a good way to go. But I do have other ways. I should add that many "organic" insecticides are pretty nasty. Pyrethrins are deadly to infants. Rotenone is far more toxic than carbaryl. I have no problem with "chemicals" if those chemicals are established to be safe.

Yes, if I didn't have cutworms, I'd direct sow.

I found an alarming number of cutworms in one of my raised beds when I was digging a trench to transplant a row of leeks. I fed all that I found to my chickens but I'm sure there are dozens more.

I put toothpicks next to the leek stems. I'm not entirely sure if cutworms go after alliums but so far all 20 are still standing. This bed will have 5 tomatoes plants put out in May and a row of lettuce on the opposite side from the leeks will be put out next weekend. I guess the lettuce will be a bell-weather because I can't think of a way to protect a lettuce transplant from cutworms. Another raised bed that I planted some bunching onions in did not have any cutworms that I saw. A mole had found its way into this bed over the fall/winter so maybe it ate them all! I guess that is one reason to like moles.

Zzackey, I support your stance on the chemical use, but we need to remember that this is not the Organic Gardening Forum, where you would be justified in scolding Dan. He seems to be informed, and that's that kind of person that can use those chemicals with reasonable safety.

Marti, I'm another direct sower. The only veggies that I give space to inside my little growing "room" are the tomatoes and peppers. However, I've not had to deal with cutworms, so far.

I have to start inside or I couldn't get them sown before late May with our long cool springs.

I don't know if this is well known or not but I have cutworms, I simply go out a little after it gets dark and look for freshly cut plants, immediately yank the plant and dig and search the root ball for the worm, sometimes you can see the hole it comes out of. Kill it and put another plant in it's place. I usually lose about 15 plants a year and kill 8-10 worms a year from 1,000 to 1500 plants. I've never had a cutworm take out a squash plant, mostly just tomato plants