Sowing seeds and more seeds...

The greenhouse is a frenzy of pots, seedlings, trays and watering cans. This time of year, however big your greenhouse, it always ends up shuffling pots around as they grow and fill their allocated space, seedling get pricked out and use up 10 times their area, and young plants need transferring to our frost free vinery to start hardening off before planting out.

The last few seeds are going in the propagator now, large seeds of the Melons and Cucumbers for training up the metal framework in the vinery - compare these to the tiny grey-white seeds of brachysome, hardly visible when sown. It is always interesting when growing from seed opening the packet of something you have not tried before. The shape, colour and size of different seeds are so varied!

Just remember the rule of thumb for beginners sowing seeds - cover the seed with about the same depth of compost, this way the food reserves can power the seedling to the surface. Too deep and it will run ot of energy before it reaches the surface. The tiniest seeds do not even need covering, just ensure they are kept moist. And there will always be exceptions to this rule as some seeds require light to germinate so if you can always check before you cover them up!

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