20 Feb 2007 - Sowing Seeds

March will soon be here and that means it's time to start sowing and planting on the allotment. Are you going to put expensive seeds straight into the ground and hope for the best? That's what we did when we first started. We soon learned that in our heavy clay soil we had far more failures than successes.

If you have a greenhouse you can give your vegetable and flower seeds a much better chance by sowing in trays, modules or plant pots. The only vegetables I sow directly into the allotment are carrots, parsnips, potatoes, onion sets and other bulbs and corms. Even then I don't sow carrot and parsnip seeds directly into the soil. I rake out a deep drill which I fill with compost. the compost is then given a thorough watering and seeds sown. The seeds are covered with compost. The problem can be that the compost can dry out so it is important to keep the area watered until the seeds germinate.

You also need to take some precautions against slugs as there is nothing they like better than a fresh juicy row of tender seedlings. Carrots are also covered with a sheet of environmesh to protect against carrot fly. It may not look pretty but is effective.

I sow most seeds into small trays. Once germinated and large enough to handle these are moved on into modules or pots to give them room to grow.

The half trays above have tomatoes and sweet corn seeds in them. Sowing seeds of tender plants in early May usually gives good strong plants by the beginning of June when the risk of night time frost has passed.

Its amazing how quickly plants grow in May. This picture was taken on 16th May. The sweetcorn has germinated and been planted into pots to grow on before planting in the allotment.

Beetroot and swedes are sown directly into modules. I find that one seed per module is fine as germination is very good. Only one or two cells fail to germinate. It seems a waste to sow two seeds per cell and then remove a small seedling from each cell if germination is 100%.

I sow my peas. French beans, runner beans, and broad beans directly into small pots. For peas I sow threee or four peas to each pot. For all types of beans I put two seeds per pot. I leave all the germinated seeds to grow on and plant out. I did try the growing in a long piece of gutter method as recommended on TV. The peas grew well but I had all sorts of trouble getting them to 'slide' out of the drainpipe and so reverted to the pot method.

All my brassicas are sown in small trays and moved on onto small pots to grow on before planting out. These are young sprout plants ready for planting.

Another advantage of bringing on your plants this way is that if conditions are too wet, cold etc for planting then plants will keep in good condition if looked after well until conditions are more suitable. Some people also think that planting brassica plants rather than sowing seed directly into the ground gives them a good start against club root.

When transplanting brassica plants you need to provide some protection from maurauding pigeons or all the effort gone into raising good strong plants is wasted. Again not pretty but covering such plants with netting until they are large enough to fend for themselves is a good idea. You can also buy netting that reputedly provides protection from the caterpillars of cabbage white butterflies which although much smaller are as devastating as the pigeons. Click here for information. Believe it or not the plants below recovered after being given some protection. Believe it or not the plants below recovered after being given some protection