Direct Sow vs Transplant Chart: What Vegetables to Transplant

Some crops resent a tray. Some never finish if you wait to direct sow them. The rest will do either, and the tray is a calendar tool, not a rule.

The split is on each cultivar sheet. Method, cell size, and nursery lead. Direct-only crops show no cell and a nursery lead of "direct only." Transplant crops name the tray and the days on the bench. A third set says direct or transplant and still lists a cell, so you can choose.

Roots that resent the tray

Bolero Nantes is direct seed only. Germination is 12 days. Days to maturity from the field is 75 days. No cell. No nursery lead. French Breakfast radish is direct seed only. Germination is 4 days. Days to maturity from the field is 25 days. Holding is 7 days. Corvair spinach is direct seed only. Germination is 8 days. Days to maturity from the field is 40 days. Provider bean is direct seed only. Germination is 8 days. Days to maturity from the field is 50 days.

These are taproots, or they move so fast that a tray costs more days than it saves. Disturb the carrot root and you get forks. The sheet does not offer a transplant path for Bolero. Do not invent one.

Crops that need the bench

Sun Gold is a transplant. Cell is 72s. Nursery lead is 49 days. Germination is 6 days, inside that lead. Days to maturity from the field set is 57 days. Holding runs 70 days. Occupancy is 196 days. Frost class is tender. Fall photoperiod is ×1. Wait to direct sow a tender crop with a 196-day occupancy and the frost wins.

Redwing onion is a transplant. Cell is 128s. Nursery lead is 70 days. Germination is 8 days. Days to maturity from the field is 110 days. The sheet fits one succession. That onion is a nursery crop that happens to finish in the field. Salanova Butterhead is a transplant too, on 128s, with a 24-day nursery lead and 55 days from field set. Head lettuce on this sheet is not a direct-sow crop.

The in-between

Marketmore 76 cucumber is direct or transplant. Cell is 72s if you tray it. Nursery lead is 21 days. Germination is 5 days. Days to maturity from the field is 58 days. Holding is 42 days. Costata Romanesco summer squash is the same split. Cell is 72s. Nursery lead is 18 days. Germination is 7 days. Days to maturity from the field is 52 days. Holding is 45 days. Both are tender. Both will take a direct sow after the soil is warm. The tray is how you steal weeks, not how you keep them alive.

The weeks you buy

Transplanting buys the nursery lead. That is time in cells while the field is still cold or still full. Salanova's lead is 24 days. Marketmore's is 21 days. Costata's is 18 days. Those are the 3-week gains. Sun Gold's lead is 49 days. Redwing's is 70 days. Long-season crops buy more because they need more. A 3-week claim does not cover an onion.

The field clock starts at set-out, not at sow. Sun Gold's 57 days to maturity are from the field. Add the 49-day bench and the seed went in more than three months before first ripe fruit. Count only the 57 and you will set plants out late and call the variety slow.

Pick the method the sheet names. If it says direct or transplant, the nursery lead is the extension you are buying. If it says direct only, sow it in the bed.