Packets with 2000 seeds

Any tips on how best to deal with (from sowing to pricking out stage) those seeds that come in hundreds or thousands in the packet? However careful I am, I just get a mass of tangled seedings that all come out together when I prick out. Is there a clever way of sowing (indoors in trays I mean) when the seeds come in multitudes?

 

try this. mix a small amount of seed with a handful of sharp sand and sprinkle as normal.old gardeners way. works for me.

 

I've mastered the art

Here's my technique. You will need the following items:
* An A4 sheet of white paper
* A small pot of clean fresh water
* A wooden kebab skewer
* Seed tray cells filled with compost, watered in advance
* A table or bench or somewhere else to rest your kit on

The technique:
* Fold three edges of the sheet of paper to make a sort of paper shovel head. You just need to fold about half an inch in from the edge. Its just so the seeds to fall off if you accidentally knock it.

* Set the sheet of paper flat on your work surface, close to your compost filled seed tray cells.

* Scatter the seeds on the sheet of paper. Knock them about with your fingers if they need dispersing more. The idea is to have them quite well dispersed around the paper.

* Take the kebab skewer and hold it like a pen or chop stick. Dip the sharp end in the water and shake off any drips. You want it wet but not dripping. This is where the science comes into it

* Point it at an individual seed. The magic of 'surface tension' (an electrostatic property of water molecules) will make the seed stick to the end of the kebab skewer.

* Now point it at the compost surface in one of your seed tray cells. Again, that magic H2O property steps in, and the seed ends up in a tug of war with surface tension alone attaching it to the stick, but the combined forces of surface tension plus gravity trying to pull it down to the compost. The compost wins and snaffles the seed off the stick in an instant.

* Repeat until all the cells are filled. If compost sticks to the stick, give it a rinse. Sometimes the seeds will stop clinging to the point of your skewer. That means its dried up, just dip in in the water again.

* If you have lots of seeds left over, remember you pre-folded the paper? That makes it so easy to just pour the seeds back into the packet.

I find that using this technique, I can sow 80 individual seeds into the centre of 80 cells in about 10 minutes. Not as fast as just sowing them loosely in the same tray, but then I don't have to do the whole pricking out thing later.

 

well i'll definitely be giving that a go thank you clueless

 

Sorry Clueless, but there is a simpler way. Tip some into the palm of your hand and pinch some with forefinger and thumb then sprinkle, just like you would with salt. I've not damaged any yet!

 

Yeah but then you still have to do the pricking out thing though Sheal. Great if you're good at it, but too fiddly for me.

 

Not if you sprinkle thinly Clueless and cells take up to much room in my propagator.

 

There is that. Your way is definitely the more efficient use of available space and resources.

 

Thank you all. I love both the Clueless method and the sand mix one, will try them both. The sprinkling like salt is what I've done before but that's the one that gives me the pricking out problem because I always get at least one great clump of seeds together, particularly if they are the same colour as the compost.

 

I love that, 'The Clueless method'