I've been lurking here a week or so and it seems that there is enough
expertise around here for there to be someone to help me with my
problem.

I have recently come back to veg gardening by getting an allotment in
Cambridge. It has been 25 years or so since I put down the lawn at home
to grass when our first child came along.

At that time my bible for growing veg was "Know and Grow Vegetables"
published by Oxford UP and written by P J Salter and others of the
National Vegetable Research Station. It is long out of print but I have
obtained a secondhand copy.

What I found particularly useful then was the idea of pregerminating
seeds (on damp paper in a plastic box in the airing cupboard). I have
used it successfully this year in the allotment. The pregerminated bean
and sweetcorn seeds went into individual pots; the peas went straight in
the ground once they were germinated.

However, what one is supposed to do with smaller seeds after
pregermination is mix them in something like wallpaper paste, put them
in a plastic bag, cut a corner off, and squeeze a line of paste + seeds
into one's drill in the soil. This is the so-called "Fluid Sowing"
method, and very fine it is too. It means you don't have to handle the
seeds with their delicate roots and they come out fairly equally spaced
into the drill.

The book says you mustn't use wallpaper paste that has a fungicide in
it. I presume that would kill the plants. Unfortunately you only appear
to be able to get such paste with fungicide in it these days. I did try
and make a flour paste, but it was a lumpy mess and the seeds, though
nicely germinated when I put them in it, failed completely to come up.

Please can anyone suggest a substitute product I could buy or an
idiot-proof recipe for a suitable paste. The technique is too valuable
to lose.


--
tragomaschalos
Cambridge

(tragomaschalos: Classical Greek adjective meaning "with armpits smelling like
a he-goat")