Hi,

Is it OK to plant seeds in multi purpose compost?

The seeds I'm hoping to grow are....
sunflowers
tomatoes
cosmos

Thank you

I understand that seeds should be started off in the dark warm place
and the seed trays should be watered & covered with polythene.

I understand that seeds should be started off in the dark warm place
and the seed trays should be watered & covered with polythene.

Seeds vary considerably in their germination requirements. For instance,
sunflowers don't need a dark warm place, grow tall very fast and you
won't be able to put them outside for at least a couple of months yet.
It's too early to sow those.

Read and follow the instructions on each packet, don't treat them
all the same.

Janet.
Thanks for your reply Janet.

the packet of sunflower seeds says. "store in a warm place, an airing
cupboard is ideal"

It does say if your planting them outdoors do it in march - june

I have a greenhouse, with a little electric fan heater in it, but were
new to gardening so havent really used it.

But none of the packets say what soil to put the seeds into.

Thank you for your help.

"tina" wrote in message
...
I understand that seeds should be started off in the dark warm place
and the seed trays should be watered & covered with polythene.

Seeds vary considerably in their germination requirements. For
instance,
sunflowers don't need a dark warm place, grow tall very fast and you
won't be able to put them outside for at least a couple of months yet.
It's too early to sow those.

Read and follow the instructions on each packet, don't treat them
all the same.

Janet.
Thanks for your reply Janet.

the packet of sunflower seeds says. "store in a warm place, an airing
cupboard is ideal"

It does say if your planting them outdoors do it in march - june

I have a greenhouse, with a little electric fan heater in it, but were
new to gardening so havent really used it.

But none of the packets say what soil to put the seeds into.

Thank you for your help.

Multi-purpose compost is just what it says on the bag. perhaps better
labelled as general purpose compost, or for a newbie, all-purpose compost.
Plenty of time to get involved in different composts when you've a bit of
experience.

Steve

"tina" wrote in message
...
Hi,

Is it OK to plant seeds in multi purpose compost?

The seeds I'm hoping to grow are....
sunflowers
tomatoes
cosmos

Thank you

I understand that seeds should be started off in the dark warm place
and the seed trays should be watered & covered with polythene.

I tend to mix some sharp sand with my compost to make it 'lighter' and give more
drainage.

Some seeds need light to germinate. Look on the packet.

and here's a useful site: http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/

Good luck and enjoy :~)
Jenny

On 25 Feb 2006 07:55:00 -0800, "La Puce" wrote:


tina wrote:
the packet of sunflower seeds says. "store in a warm place, an airing
cupboard is ideal"

This is to store the seed packets - I find in a tin on the shelves at
home is fine.

It does say if your planting them outdoors do it in march - june

Beginning of April is when I saw my sunflowers outside in the garden or
allotment. Mid april if the weather is bad before that. In pots I start
them end of March. I use John Innes seeds and cutting compost and mix a
bit of perlite in them (or vermiculite). It helps with drainage. I like
using biodegredable pots, little brown pots of cardboard which
disappear in the soil. Like this I don't have to move the little
plants. I just lower the pot in a hole in the ground.
I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.
Why are all these good recycling ideas / devices so expensive. (water
saving, compost bins etc)
With the government so desperate for us to recycle more, these devices
should be free to those who want to use them (or at least heavily
subsidised at least)
How much money would it save the government to issue every home in the
uk with a descent compost bin & a water butt?

What sunflowers do you have? This year I'll do 6 varieties: traditional
giant, teddy bear, red sun (my favourites), italian white, mixed multi
branching ones (for cutting) and a Fashion one.
Giant Single, Dwarf Sunspot, Evening Sun & Teddy Bear

Cosmos you need to sow them a few week before the last frost - as if
we'd know! Again, I would use a seed compost rather than a multi
purpose compost.

Again for tomatoes - sow 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost. To me
that's usually mid March. I've never got frost here past end of april.
I'm in Manchester. Where do you live?
Leeds.

tina wrote:
[...]
I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.
Why are all these good recycling ideas / devices so expensive. (water
saving, compost bins etc)
With the government so desperate for us to recycle more, these devices
should be free to those who want to use them (or at least heavily
subsidised at least)

It's just a genteel rip-off. No special equipment is needed to make pots
out of newspaper, just a little imagination. They aren't brilliant, I
can tell you from my once-only experience, as they go weak and floppy
when wet, but if you fit several into an ice-cream container or similar
deep tray they'll stand up well enough. Make a tube of the diameter you
want, and secure either with a staple or by turning in the top edge, or
both; you can then either do the same to the bottom, or tuck the bottom
edge over to make a base. (I bet the Japanese have an origami recipe for
the purpose -- might even be on the web if you Google something like
origami flower pot.)

If planting out the whole thing rather than taking the plant out, I'd
tear the "pot" in a few places while doing so -- but it'll probably
happen anyway -- to give the roots a rapid escape route.

You'd probably be doing the planet a bigger favour if you re-used yogurt
pots and things, and handed the papers in for recycling (news papers are
on partly recycled paper, which is why they use that horrible ink which
comes off on your hands)


How much money would it save the government to issue every home in the
uk with a descent compost bin & a water butt?
[...]

I don't imagine it would save the government anything at all!

--
Mike.

"tina" wrote in message
...



I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.

In theory newspaper can be recycled for other purposes. i.e
pulped up in bulk and turned into cardboard or whatever.

Yogurt pots and other plastics - including 4pt milk containers
lemonade bottles etc can't be recycled in a similar fashion but
being waterproof, rotproof and lightweight are ideal for using
as pots, propagation covers etc. All sorts of gardening uses in
fact. All it takes is a bit of ingenuity, and the ability to
drill\pierce a few drainage holes in the bottom or cut the things
up as required.
When you see all the trouble previous generations including the
Victorians had to go to, you'd imagine they'd have given their eye
teeth for the wonderful materials we throw away in the bin
every day without giving it a second thought. Yes, and there's
a name for it as well.


michael adams

"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
tina wrote:
[...]
I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.

here's a FREE method :~)
http://homepages.which.net/~jandorr/potinstructions.htm

Jenny

The message
from "JennyC" contains these words:


"Mike Lyle" wrote in message
...
tina wrote:
[...]
I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.

here's a FREE method :~)
http://homepages.which.net/~jandorr/potinstructions.htm

Jenny

And another

http://www.geocities.com/newspaperpots/

"tina" wrote in message
...
On 25 Feb 2006 07:55:00 -0800, "La Puce" wrote:


tina wrote:
the packet of sunflower seeds says. "store in a warm place, an airing
cupboard is ideal"

This is to store the seed packets - I find in a tin on the shelves at
home is fine.

It does say if your planting them outdoors do it in march - june

Beginning of April is when I saw my sunflowers outside in the garden or
allotment. Mid april if the weather is bad before that. In pots I start
them end of March. I use John Innes seeds and cutting compost and mix a
bit of perlite in them (or vermiculite). It helps with drainage. I like
using biodegredable pots, little brown pots of cardboard which
disappear in the soil. Like this I don't have to move the little
plants. I just lower the pot in a hole in the ground.

I did see a little device in a gardening mag. "make your own seedling
pots" out of newspaper. But it was £13.00 + £5 p&p. Nice idea as your
recycling your spare newspaper, but £18.00 seems a bit expensive.
Why are all these good recycling ideas / devices so expensive. (water
saving, compost bins etc)

Take a plastic pot, make up some paste using flour and water, wrap a piece
of paper round the pot, add more paper covered with paste, wait until dry
pull of paper pot, fill with compost, and plant your seeds, the whole thing
will in time become very floppy, but you can plant the whole thing in the
ground as it will rot fairly quickly.

Or you could do as I do, and use the inside of toilet paper rolls!

These, again, will also rot down after you have planted them.

Alan

On Mon, 27 Feb 2006 17:29:15 GMT, "Alan Holmes"
Take a plastic pot, make up some paste using flour and water, wrap a piece
of paper round the pot, add more paper covered with paste, wait until dry
pull of paper pot, fill with compost, and plant your seeds, the whole thing
will in time become very floppy, but you can plant the whole thing in the
ground as it will rot fairly quickly.

Or you could do as I do, and use the inside of toilet paper rolls!

These, again, will also rot down after you have planted them.

Alan

What a great idea, thanks