So you have decided to add some solar panels to you home and you know you need to look at all your options to help you decide how big of a system you need.  You are probably already familiar with  a few of the different factors that must be considered before your first purchase.

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Here we are again at the very beginning of the spring planting season.  If you live down in the southern part of the US chances are you are already gearing up for planting since you have that wondrously long growing season.  Up here in the Midwest we do not quite enjoy that luck so we are still dreaming of the spring planting and the only thing we can do is start our seedlings.  

So with that in mind now is the time to start your own seedlings indoors so that they will be large enough for transplanting when it is finally warm enough.  In reality you need to start very few types of plants indoors and that is only because they need a longer growing season than can be provided.  

I will typically only start tomatoes, peppers and watermelons indoors and will instead direct seed the rest when the weather allows.  You can also use season extension techniques like low tunnels or hoop houses to protect and encourage new growth earlier.

It is very tempting to jump the gun when it comes to new planting especially if you have unseasonable warm weather but make to pay attention to the local last frost dates and if you want to plant earlier  seriously consider using low tunnel hoop house to protect against those surprise frosts.