Direct Sowing Seeds: A Guide to Successful Planting

Written by: Luke Marion

Published on July 24, 2025

Updated on August 14, 2025

Ever thought about starting your garden without transplanting any seedlings? You CAN do it and still have a thriving garden! I consider indoor seed starting and purchasing seedlings a luxury, not a necessity for successful gardening.

A man directly sowing seeds in garden soil.

It seems like backwards thinking to say that direct sowing outdoors can be trickier than starting seeds indoors, but it really can be. This is especially true for beginning gardeners who are just learning how to start a vegetable garden.

In this article, I'll share the benefits of direct sowing and the five best tips for direct sowing seeds that will take your garden to the next level!

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I’ve created these resources for sowing seeds to help you establish strong roots, too:

The Advantages of Direct Sowing

Direct sowing is the practice of sowing seeds into the garden soil in their intended permanent location. It offers several benefits over starting plants indoors and transplanting the seedlings.

Benefit	Reason
Lower Cost	Seeds are often significantly less expensive than seedlings, and direct sowing eliminates the need to buy seed starting equipment
Less Labor Time	Direct sowing seeds removes the time needed to manage indoor seedlings, harden them off, and transplant them
Avoid Transplant Shock	Plants that are directly sown develop in their permanent location, adapting to the weather conditions as they grow without needing to be hardened off
More Resilient Plants	Plants that were directly sown are generally hardier and don’t undergo the root disturbance that happens in transplanting

The Disadvantages of Direct Sowing Seeds

When directly sowing seeds, you may encounter problems due to the variables outdoors that don’t exist indoors. The weather causes changes like sudden warming or cooling. Wind, rain, and sun can change the soil temperature and the rate at which the soil dries out.

Growing outdoors also increases the chances of pests, diseases, and animals in the garden. Whereas, in a grow room, you can strive to maintain the ideal conditions.

If you don’t know how to properly sow seeds or you don’t have everything right, you can really run into some problems. That’s why I want to share these five simple tricks that will increase your direct sowing success!

When to Direct Sow Seeds in Your Garden

Figuring out when to plant seeds depends on a few variables. Use the information below to calculate starting dates for each variety you plan to grow.

Frost Dates - You will want to know the average number of days between the last spring frost and the first fall frost in your area. Many garden plants will not survive a freeze and so the number of warm days between frosts is know as your growing season length. Pro-Tip: You can use this handy, free online frost dates calculator for the U.S. and Canada to learn your last and first frost dates and growing season length.
Days to Maturity - Look at the seed packet to learn how many days it will take for the crop to mature. Choose varieties that will have enough time to mature in the length of your growing season.
Germination Temperature - Each seed has an optimal range of temperatures that it will germinate in. Find the germination temperature on the seed packet and use it as a guide for when to plant seeds out into the garden. Following the recommended germination temperature will greatly improve your direct sowing success.

For example, if you are growing lettuce and growing tomatoes in containers, you can plant the lettuce earlier in the spring because it germinates in cooler temperatures, but you will want to wait until after the last frost to plant tomatoes outdoors.

For further guidance, I recommend using the Seedtime App or Clyde’s Garden Planner to help you calculate sowing dates for your area.

How to Direct Sow Seeds

Direct sowing is the preferred method of planting for some garden vegetables, including peas, squash, pumpkins, sunflowers, and beans. Regardless of the type of seeds you’re planting, use these step-by-step instructions as a guide:

Source Quality Seeds - Poor germination rates can be caused by poor-quality seed. Make sure you start with quality heirloom seeds and practice the best seed storage practices.
Sunlight - Choose a garden location that will provide enough sunlight hours for those seeds to grow. The seed packet should tell you the sunlight requirements of that plant.
Amend the Soil - Amending your soil is important to maintain nutrients and promote plant growth. Amend your soil with compost or vermicompost and other amendments as needed. Pro-Tip: I recommend doing a soil test with the Rapitest Soil Tester so you can make informed decisions about soil amending.
Make Holes or Rows - Make rows or holes to plant your seeds in. (Although a trowel or dibbler is not essential, they can make planting much easier.) I use high intensity spacing to prevent weeds and optimize the use of my garden space. Pro-Tip: Plant more than one seed per space. If you plant just one seed, not every seed will germinate, and you will be left with empty spaces. I would much rather have to go back and thin out extra seedlings than have gaps in my row.
Planting Depth - Check the seed packets for proper planting depth. Pro-Tip: If you don’t have a seed packet, plant the seed two to three times deeper than the seed’s width. This is a guideline, not a hard, fast rule, so check the sowing depth if you can.
Fertilize - Any all-purpose fertilizer could be used, but I have the best results when using Trifecta+.
Water - After direct sowing seeds, water them in.

Tips & Tricks for Sowing Seeds Directly

Use these tips when direct sowing seeds:

Use a Board - A simple board will help you more than you imagine! You can use it as a crossboard that sits on top of a raised garden bed, spanning the width and allowing the gardener to sit, walk, or kneel on the crossboard when planting without compacting the soil, walking around, or reaching across.
Flag - Use a marking flag or plant labels to designate where you sowed seeds. (And label them with a garden marker!) I know this seems very basic, but you would be surprised how often seeds are planted and then the gardener forgets what they planted there or that something was planted there at all. This can lead to overplanting, crossplanting, or other issues.
Use Cardboard - Cardboard is a handy tool in the garden, but you may not realize that you can use it to help seeds germinate better. As I shared in the Complete Growing Guide for Carrots, some seeds are better planted shallow, but they still need to be kept dark and moist in order to germinate. For those seeds (like chamomile, some herbs, carrots, celery, and others), place the cardboard over your freshly planted seeds and weigh it down with a few rocks. Once you start to see sprouts, remove the cardboard.
Remember to Water - Seeds need to be well watered. Sometimes people forget to water when planting outdoors. Pay attention to the amount of rainfall you are getting and the soil moisture. Water your seeds as needed.

Broadcast Seeding

Broadcasting is another method of sowing seeds. Broadcast seeding means scattering seeds over a large area of the soil’s surface.

While it is not often used in the vegetable garden, it's commonly used in farming and for planting grasses and wildflowers. As you can see in the video, I broadcast 4 million native wildflower seeds on our farm to restore its habitat.

I hope you enjoyed this post and learned something new today!