On Saturday, December 2, 2017 at 11:11:36 AM UTC, Paul Luton wrote:
On 30-Nov-17 1:33 PM, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
stuart noble wrote:
These sound like a good idea but they would only seem to be worthwhile
if the seeds are too small to handle. As a bit of a novice with veggies,
what are the varieties that would fall into this category? I suppose
carrots to start with...

AND if you can rely on nearly 100% successful germination. In my
garden, I get c. 80% but only c. 30% of the time; the rest, I get
rates of as low of as a few percent. That's carrots - other things
mostly do better, though a few do worse. As a result, I have to sow
more densely, resow if that fails, and thin out when I get success.


Regards,
Nick Maclaren.


Good point.Carrots seem particularly variable. I still haven't worked
out what the critical factor is (or are) out of temperature, moisture,
depth or slug activity. Later in the year seems to be better.
Having been very successful with germinating parsnips in a bag of
compost in the airing cupboard I wonder if carrots would work in the
same way. I doubt if the farmers do that though !

Paul

By default I germinate everything between 2 wet sheets of kitchen roll covered with a plastic bag. Bigger seeds are easy to handle when they sprout but carrots probably not.