Raising plants from seed is an essential gardening skill. It allows you to quickly and cheaply propagate new plants each season, cultivate rare or hard to find varieties and have enough to share around.
These techniques can be used for everything from heirloom vegetables set to grace your next dinner party showstopper dish, to charming old-fashioned cottage flowers ready to turn your place into a riot of seasonal colour.
Sourcing seed
This is the part that could very well be the most fun. There’s a good variety of seed available in retail nurseries, but if you’re after something out of the ordinary there’s an entire world of rare, exotic and heirloom seed varieties available in online stores and via mail order catalogues.
It’s a cherished garden ritual to tuck up with a few seed catalogues in the depths of winter, make a shopping list and imagine everything you’re going to cram into your garden when spring rolls around.
Where possible try to source seed that has been produced in Australia, as this will be more adapted to the conditions and weather patterns down here.
Containers
Although some seed can be sown in-situ, it’s a good idea to raise your seeds in containers before transplanting out into the garden. This allows you to control the environment they’re growing in, and to keep a closer eye on how they’re going. It also means they’re easy to keep away from pests who’d love to munch on the tender new foliage.
Small plastic pots are lightweight, drain well and are easy to store, which makes them the industry standard. But seeds aren’t fussy about their living quarters, and will happily grow in recycled materials such as milk bottles cut in half or even toilet paper rolls with the end folded over.
Potting mix
The large particle size of regular potting mix can mean that fine seed gets lost and buried too far below the surface, or if it does generate the mix can be too chunky for the seedling to easily push out of the way.
That’s why it’s a good idea to use a specialty ‘seed raising’ potting mix. It will contain smaller particles, combined with a good portion of sand to ensure good drainage to prevent fungal diseases killing your seedlings.
Sowing, pricking out and transplanting
When it comes time to actually sow your seed, remember a good rule of thumb is to only sow the seed twice the depth of the seed itself. You can use your thumb to make divots before distributing out the seed, or if you want to get technical and keep it consistent a chopstick will help. Sow 3-4 seeds in each hole to make room for failures, gently backfill with the same potting mix and water in well. Write down somewhere the date that you planted the seed, so you can track when they should be germinating against what it says on the seed packet.
As the seeds germinate, you’ll probably end up with too many growing in the one spot. It’s important to thin out the seedlings, cutting the excess off either by pinching with your fingers or using a small pair of scissors. As hard as it may be to make the cull, it’s necessary as too much competition means none will grow properly into healthy mature plants.
Once your seedlings have produced their second set of leaves, you can gently transplant them out into the garden in their final growing space. Make sure they’re nice and damp when you do this, to avoid root damage.
Water
It’s vital you check your seedlings daily and do not allow them to dry out. Germinating seedlings are tiny and delicate, and can be washed away by the strong flow of a hose gun or a watering can. Instead, try a misting rose or a pump spray bottle to water in your new babies as gently as possible.
Saving seed
As your annual plants start to fade for the year, the flowers will begin to set seed. This is your opportunity to start the cycle all over again. Allowing the seed to ripen on the plant will ensure it is
For dry seed pods, it’s simply a matter of tying a paper bag around the seed head and waiting for the seed to fall out when they’re ready. Seed contained in fleshy fruits such as tomatoes needs to be extracted from the flesh by crushing, sieving and leaving to dry.
Once your seed has been collected, place it in a paper bag or a clean jar. Put it somewhere dark and at a stable temperature to keep the seed fresher for longer. Always remember to label your seed with what the plant was and the time you collected the seed, so you’re not left scratching your head when it comes time to plant it out again.
Do you have some seedling secrets to share? We’d love to hear about them in the comments section below.
Also read: How to propagate indoor plants with Patrick Honan
