Sow The Seeds...

It's time!

Sow the seeds of your garden by creating your own beautiful plants from seed. Not only is this more economical but it also gives the gardener great satisfaction. There are two different methods of growing seed; direct sowing into the garden bed or sowing into germination trays for transplanting later.

A lot of vegetable seeds can be planted directly into the garden. Suitable for planting now are beans, beetroot, carrots, corn, cucumber, onions, peas, potatoes, pumpkin, radish and squash. Other vegetables where you don’t need lots of plants coming up and going to waste are the cabbage family, parsley and other herbs, tomatoes, eggplant and capsicum. It’s a good idea to plant a few seeds of these every 2-3 weeks to have a constant supply of seedlings.

In general flowers are more easily grown in containers as many of them have very fine seeds which can be lost planted in the garden. Use Searles seedraising mix and follow the directions on the bag for best results. Plastic containers with a hole punched in the base are very suitable or re cycle seedling punnets.

In the garden bed prepare the soil in advance of planting with a good coating of Searles 5 in 1 organic fertiliser or Searles Real Compost Mix. Dig these into the top 10cm of the soil and rake the surface to produce a fine tilth. Water the soil prior to planting. As a general rule most leaf, fruiting and flowering plants need plenty of organic fertiliser to produce good results. However, root crops such as carrot, parships, potatoes and radish do not like too much manure as this increases leaf growth so they require less organic fertiliser.

When purchasing seeds check the back of the seed packets for the expiry date to ensure your seed is fresh and viable. Plant according to the directions on the seed packet for planting depth, distance between rows and plant spacing. Cover the seeds with a light dressing of Searles Seed Raising Mix and water well with a fine spray to initiate the germination process.

Joys Tips for growing – Thinning out carrots can be a long job so look for Yates seed tapes – these are a marvellous timesaving invention as the seeds come impregnated into a tape which can be cut off to the length required and placed into the row. Another good tip is to mix carrot seed with radish seed: as the radish grows quicker than the carrots and is removed from the row it helps to thin out the carrots. If you don’t like radishes, mix carrot seed with fine sand and you will achieve a row of carrots with much less thinning to do!

Call into Mareeba Garden Centre on Anzac, Avenue, Mareeba for all your seeding requirements and get professional helpful advice on the best way to achieve a garden which is the envy of all your friends and don’t forget to always Garden with Joy at Mareeba Garden Centre.

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