Sowing your own seeds or those bought from a shop allows you to experience one of the simple and essential joys of gardening. When you're a beginner, you might not always dare to embark on this beautiful adventure, feeling a bit intimidated by the techniques and gestures to master. To succeed with your seedlings, it's just important to follow a few key points to give yourself the best chance of seeing the little shoots emerge that will become the flowers in your garden or the vegetables in your plot. Here are the seven steps to get it right the first time!
Why sow your own seeds?
Sowing your own seeds is not only an economical activity—since buying seeds is much cheaper than buying young plants (a packet of several seeds equals just one plant in a garden centre or nursery)—but it’s also deeply rewarding. Watching a plant grow from seed to maturity is a true gardener’s experience. Some even say you’re not a gardener until you’ve sown seeds!
When to sow?
It all depends on what you're sowing and whether you're working in an ornamental garden or a vegetable plot, outdoors or indoors. Most seeds are sown in spring, as they benefit from rising temperatures and regular rainfall. Use a phenological indicator such as:
- The flowering of apple trees, which signals the start for sowing cold-resistant vegetables and flowers (April).
- The flowering of lilacs for seeds that love warmth (annual flowers) when lilacs bloom (April-May).
But indoors, you can get ahead and start sowing as early as February. Indoors is the only place to sow delicate vegetables like tomatoes, peppers, and aubergines. Refer to a sowing calendar and the dates mentioned on the seed packets.
Different types of sowing
When you're new to sowing, the different techniques can be a bit confusing. There’s direct sowing (with row sowing, broadcast sowing, or hill sowing and seed tape sowing), as well as protected sowing (seed tray sowing, a sort of large tray) or bucket sowing indoors. Here, we’ll focus on the latter, protected sowing, as it’s the simplest for beginners. Indoor bucket sowing is often the starting point, as it’s not subject to outdoor weather fluctuations. Germination is usually assured with the right care and depth, which are easy to master.
What equipment do you need for sowing?
For indoor sowing:
- Seed trays or individual buckets (peat/biodegradable, plastic pots, or recycled containers): these are for larger seeds. You can also make your own containers using newspaper, egg cartons, or toilet roll tubes.
- A seed tray with alveoli or a seed tray for finer seeds. A mini greenhouse isn’t essential to start with, but becomes useful if you get hooked and try more "delicate" sowings. Consider using clean plastic or polystyrene food trays—they’re free!
- Special seedling compost, or a mix of standard compost and sand (river or quarry sand) + a sieve to refine the compost.
- A spray bottle
- A small stick or pencil
- Labels
N.B.: For outdoor sowing in a vegetable plot or directly in a flowerbed, you’ll need a seed drill if you’re sowing in rows outdoors, a watering can with a rose, and a garden line. Also read: Outdoor sowing, useful tools and accessories and How to sow using a soil block maker.
How to sow in 7 easy steps?
- Prepare the soil mix and buckets or seed tray: buy ready-to-use seedling compost (it’s practical for beginners), or mix 2 parts good garden soil (the kind from molehills is excellent!) with 1 part coarse sand and sieve the lot with a medium sieve.
2. Fill the chosen container with soil, right to the top. In the seed tray, trace small furrows with the tip of a small stick.
3. Sow the seeds in groups of 2 or 3 in each bucket or alveolus, spaced 3 cm apart in a triangle, or in rows in the seed tray, spaced 4-5 cm apart.
4. Sow at the right depth: this is always indicated on the seed packet. The depth is usually 2 or 3 times the diameter of the seed (meaning barely buried!). Lightly press down with your hand.
5. Cover with a lid or transparent film (provided with mini greenhouses, which is very handy for beginners) to create a warmer, more humid atmosphere. This helps the seeds germinate.
6. Expose to light: place your small pots or seed trays in a very bright spot at room temperature, and label them if you’re doing several.
7. Water: use a spray bottle for fine seeds, or a small watering can for larger seeds. Monitoring and the amount of watering are crucial! The soil should be moist but not waterlogged. For more details, check out our article Successful watering for seedlings: a beginner’s guide.
And after? Once the seedlings are a few centimetres tall and have developed their first leaves, all you’ll need to do is thin them out, selecting the strongest seedlings and removing the weaker ones. Then transplant the seedlings from the seed tray into pots to strengthen the root system of the well-developed young seedlings (bucket-sown seedlings can skip this step).
You can then transplant them directly into the flowerbed or vegetable plot once the frosts have passed!
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