Sowing tricky seeds... a tip

I love sowing seeds ... maybe more than anything else in gardening. I sow anything from one to two hundred different species every year plus a load of mixed seed.
Being somewhat clumsy, one of the things that frustrates me is sowing seeds into plant cells as picking up small seeds and depositing them in the centre of a cell used to tax my dexterity. A couple of years ago I started using a moist cocktail stick to pick up the seeds, which was OK, but still fairly fiddly and often it took several goes to get the seed onto the stick.
Fortunately a few days ago I ran out of sticks, and decided to use a cotton bud instead.
Fabulous! It picks the seed up with no problem, and it is simply a matter or rotating the stick on its axis in the compost to persuade the seed to detach itself.
One cotton bud should last an hour's seed sowing, which makes it a very cheap method!
Mike

That sounds like a good idea. I will try it today. I have been using some tweezers but it is hard to pick up the round, tiny ones with the tweezers. You can use the flat ones like a small shovel, but I was getting too many seeds, so your method sounds like it solves the problem.

I sure love seed sowing (and germinating) too! I'm not sure what you mean by a cotton bud.
Could you describe it?

Hmmm I wonder, would that be about the same as using a moistened Q-tip?

cinemike,

Are you referring to what we here in the United States commonly call a Q-tip; or Cotton Swab?

~* Robin

Yes - I think that is it - I thought maybe a Q Tip is a trade name - it would be used for cleaning ears and other bodily crevices...

Yes Q-Tip is a trade AKA: 'Brand' name, but when you say that; everyone here knows what you are talking about; but Cotton Swab is the real common name.... some Americans say .. Huh? When you say Cotton Swab. Makes you wonder what part of the plant they come from. LOL!

I use them for so many other jobs too. Even for pollinating house-bound plants!

~* Robin

Let me add, my ignorant improvised method - (I say so because I never saw anyone sowing seeds, so all I know is all I can imagine to overcome this difficulty:)

I take the seeds on my palm. I take a kebab stick (any thin cane stick as long as a pencil would do) in the other hand. I spit on the palm of the hand holding the seeds, but not on them. I dip the stick end in the saliva and then use it to pick up a seed and put it in the tray. I roll the stick back and fore with my fingers until the seed stays into the compost mix. I lft the stick out - it is covered with compost as it attches to the saliva. I rotate it 2-3 times on my trousers until wiped clean and I am ready for the next seed. It works beautiful with moderate to large seeds, but the tiny ones (like foxgloves) are always a headache. Anybody with better ideas ????

Dimitri

Dimitri,
Long time no see, good to see a post.
My thoughts on this one, that is the reason for long fingernails! I just dump the seed in the palm of one hand and then use my little fingernail as a tiny scoop and pic them up one at a time and drop them in the ground, seed tray, whatever. Must admit I have to be wearing my glasses at the time. The problem I have is more seeing them rather than picking them up afterwards!

Wanting to challenge my eyes I ordered some more streptocarpus seeds and one that is supposed to be even smaller. Chiltern recommended using silver sand mixed in. I haven't opened the seed container yet, but it should be interesting. I have no clue what silver sand is either. Streptocarpus have been in about a week. I wonder when they will germinate.

Dental Tools!!! I just got a few at a flea market - presumably new- LOL! and they work great (don't ask me to name them!) I got A dental spatula (for lifting out seedlings) some kind of pick, and this cool one with a spear loooking thing on one side and a spoon shaped thing on the other - I think for placing the filling goo... anyway- I LOVE them!

Heather

I got a set of seed spoons from Lee Valley Tools, and they are GREAT! They come in four different sizes, and were well worth the $3 they cost. My eyes are getting older (along with the rest of me), and I used to have to be ruthless with the manicure scissors when it came to thinning time - not to mention that I HATE choosing! This year I had much less to thin out.

Here is a link: http://www.leevalley.com/garden/page.aspx?c=2&p=40896&cat=2,44713,40759&ap=1

I have a pair of metal tweezers with plastic tips used in electronics industry. They are slightly cupped at the end, so you can use them as a tiny shovel as well as picking up the bigger seeds. I keep putting fewer and fewer seeds in each hole as germination has not been a problem. I have been waiting until the roots create a small root ball and then using a narrow letter opener to get the plant(s) out and my finger which is just the right size to make a hole all the way to the bottom and enough diameter to slide the plant in.

Because of our mild conditions, hardening off doesn't seem that necessary. Getting everything very wet before transferring seems to make a big difference and then watering in afterward.

The hardest part for me is trashing the excess. They are good looking plants and it is hard to throw them away, though it is necessary if I am to get going on the new ones. Switching to 72 plug detachable sheet pots will solve the problem of erratic germination. Planting fewer plants also cuts down on the excess.

Streptocarpus generally germinate in 15 - 30 days depending on age and temperature/humidity.

The problem I have found with any solid object for picking up seeds is that if the seed has comparable curvature to the 'picker-up', one is likely to see the seed falling off on the way to its resting place. The advantage of cotton buds is that they 'give' to allow the seed into the small recesses in their surface. Then the act of rubbing the seed onto the compost is generally enough to free the seed.

Gunna do another round of seeds, I will try your method. Also the first time for trying coir as well. Just learning, do not know enough to know what I don't know. It all very exciting to go out and see what has come up over night.

Hi, haighr!!! I hope your dracs are about flowering, yes ??? Mine just started; I hope to have some time to conduct some experiments this year to see how I can activate these seeds to germinate.


All in all, when the seeds are tiny, whether it is dental tools or q-tips or whatever, the problem is you can't get just the one seed in every little "cup" or what you call it. Also, it is the total number of seeds you will plant, and not the total mass - if you sow 20 melon seeds they will take some space on your palm, but the same space occupied bu hollyhock is more than 200 yes ?? and you don't want 200 hollyhocks ? to love and to cherish ??? So, 20 powder-big seeds are not too difficult ot handle but the problem is you pay for one packet, and if has 400 inside you feel like you are throwing your money away unless you make them all germinate - and that is what starts the problem.

Best wishes

D

Yes, it is the leftovers that are getting to me. Leftover seeds aren't bad, they will last for a while, but you germinate 32 cells, with two seeds apiece. You really only want a couple of six packs. So, you move over 16 cells, thinking some are going to die, the rest sit there until you need to room to grow more, then the 16 cells mostly make it and you only need 10, so more to throw away. Even when you only get 10 seeds, I generally only want one or two plants unless they are particularly tough to grow and I know there are going to be casualties along the way. I sowed a row of Crotalaria cunninghamii, thinking that only a few would germinate. It looks like they all are going to make it to the next stage. Green flowers are different, but I only want one of them. Six months from now when the plants are ready to plant out, I will need to find a home for the other ones. I suspect there is a reason you do not see many crotalaria in the nurseries, that being that people do not like them. The good side of this is that seeds run about three or four bucks, hard-to-find one gallons run $8-10, so if you only get one plant from a batch of seeds you are ahead, even with your time and money spent on getting the plant to the one gallon stage. Plus, you have had a marvelous time picking something out, finding it, learning how to grow it and then watching it happen before your eyes. Gotta learn to throw the rejects away.

The dracs are up about a foot but a long way from flowering, not until late June or July here.
I can manage to get one "nail seed" in each cell, but my problem is I often begin too early and can't get them out in the ground at the appropriate time. I find that I have few leftovers as I generally have a few trays that I must always restart after an initial failure. Anything leftover goes up to the cabin and is pitched in the wildflower bed with a little wish for "good luck", may the strongest survive!

Qtips won't do for very small seeds, only medium-sized ones [big ones you can use your fingers....]. For very small seeds, I reckon that the standard instruction of mixing with dry(!) silver sand is best. Then you can assume that the seeds are roughly evenly distributed and divide the sand/seed mix between the number of pots you want...

I 've read books on it, and I always laugh at the idea of mixing them with sand. The theory of mixing solids with different sizes is that the more you mix them, the more they separate - small ones go down, big ones at the top. Also, it is written that you can mix the seeds with wallpaper glue (methylcellulose) and sow the mix with a big-nozzled syringe !!!! I still use the kebab stick.


Haighr, best wishes - my dracs flowered already. I will photograph them and post some pics inthe weekend (it is the Greek Orthodox Easter !!!)

D

Re: mixing with sand...
Of course you are right that the seeds will go to the bottom, but the point is that you can spread them out roughly evenly over an AREA. Say you have 250 tiny seeds. which you mix with say 2cc of sand. If you spread that sand out over a square area of 4cm square and then agitate the sand (which will be about 1mm deep). If you then divide the 4cm square area up into 1cm sq units (= 16) you can collect the sand/seed mixture from each unit and sow that with a reasonable expectation of having 10 - 25 seeds in each pot. Moreover, you will be reasonably confident that there will be several mm distance between each seed - making the 'pricking out' process much less hazardous. To my mind that is much less taxing than trying to pick up 250 individual seeds from a tiny pile and transfer them to some position that you are not quite sure whether it already contains a seed...

D - will be looking for the pics, happy holidays.
Great ideas on sowing seed, but getting a bit too mathematical for my brain LOL! The sand mixing is a unique idea I hadn't heard of until now.