"Brerfox" writes:
G'day from Brissie,
I have a relatively new (12 months old) vegie patch and am having moderate
success with a few vegies.
However, I find that hardly any seeds germinate in the bed -- nothing much
comes through. I can germinate the seeds successfully in seedling
containers in my fern house, then transplant them, and they grow OK. Over
the period I've tried direct seed sowing of beetroot, lettuces, silverbeet,
tomatoes, broccoli, all to no avail.
Could it be ants? We have millyuns and millyuns of little tiny ones all
over the place.
Help?

I'd guess that the seeds are drying out. It is difficult to keep a large
bed moist right to the few mm depth of newly-planted seeds. Most of those
vegetables do well transplanted as seedlings, anyway, and that way you can
select the most vigorous individuals to plant out. If you really must plant
direct into garden beds, try covering the soil where you've dropped the
seeds with a wispy layer of browned-off lawn clippings or natural sawdust
(without chemicals) thick enough to block the worst of the sunshine but thin
enough that the emerging seedlings can push their way through, and lightly
water the soil 2 to 5 times a day, depending on the season.

I'm sure that ants would take away some seeds, but unlikely to take all.
I once was finding all my snail pellets were disappearing within two days
of them having been spread around. I discovered it to be a rat, raiding
the garden bed in broad daylight to gather up the pellets one by one!

The ideal time to plant seeds is the day before a week of showery weather
if you can arrange it! This applies especially when planting carrots and
that way you'll get most of them up.
--
John Savage (my news address is not valid for email)