Gardening
SPRING
SPRung
Has
Words: Trevor Jones, Head of Garden Operations
N ow that spring is here it’ s time to get sowing flower and vegetable seeds.
Given a glasshouse heated sufficiently to keep it frost-free or a sunny window sill, you can virtually have your own plant nursery, raising a huge number of plants very cheaply from seed, whether they are pot or bedding plants for your garden and containers, tomatoes and vegetables.
The basic method for sowing seeds in pots or trays works whether you’ re sowing tomatoes in a heated propagator, busy lizzies on a spare window sill or hardy annuals in a frost-free un-heated glasshouse.
Fill a clean pot or seed tray with fresh seed compost to within half an inch of the rim. Level the surface and tap down to produce a firm seed bed. Sprinkle fine seeds very thinly over the surface leaving them uncovered. Stand the container in a few inches of water allowing the compost to soak up the water. Allow the container to drain for a few minutes. Stand the containers in a propagator, on a glasshouse shelf or on a sunny window-sill and cover with a sheet of newspaper until the first seedlings start to show. Sow medium seeds in the same way but cover the seed with a thin layer of compost shaken through a sieve. Large seeds can be pushed into the compost
to roughly their own depth. Label your container with the name of the plants and the date they were sown.
Once your seedlings have emerged and are large enough to handle [ about three to four weeks after sowing ] prick them out into a multi-purpose compost by carefully holding the leaves and prizing the roots up using a dibber or pencil. Never hold the seedling by the stem as if this is damaged the plant will die. If using a seed tray, prick the seedlings out into rows. Make a seedling size hole in the compost with a dibber or pencil, feed the root down into it and lower the seedling until its first leaves are just above compost level. Firm the compost around the roots and water the seedlings with a fine rose sprinkler or stand the tray in water for a few minutes. Use the same method for plants pricked out into pots or plastic cells. Stand the container out of bright sunlight until the seedlings have revived and then place the container in good light where the seedlings will quickly establish and grow away.
Anything that has been grown in a protected environment will have to be hardened off, or acclimatised to the great outdoors. The idea is to acclimatise the young plants slowly to outdoor conditions before you plant them so that the sudden
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