EP312 Getting Prepared Before Sowing Seeds Next Month: Seed Readiness, Not Seed Sowing Yet

Seed success starts long before the first tray is filled. We’re laying down a practical, no‑nonsense prep plan that saves you time, cuts waste, and sets your early crops up for real momentum once daylight returns in mid‑February. From testing old packets on kitchen paper to choosing the right trays and compost, we go deep on the details that quietly deliver stronger seedlings and bigger harvests.

We talk through the realities of germination rates, why seed vigour matters even when sprouts appear, and when to be ruthless about binning tired stock. You’ll hear a clear comparison between open pollinated and F1 hybrid seed—where resilience, seed saving, and flavour meet reliability, pest tolerance, and uniformity—so you can choose with intent. On kit, we separate “nice to have” from “need”: rigid seed trays and modules earn their place; heated propagators help with tomatoes and peppers; grow lights are optional if you time sowings for rising natural light.

Compost can make or break a sowing day. We weigh up peat’s consistency against peat‑free variability, call out premium peat‑free options that perform, and share a simple DIY seed mix: fine, mature compost or leaf mould for structure, perlite for air, and a light nutrient lift from vermicompost and seaweed. Then it’s technique: dense sowing with gentle pricking out, thinning to the strongest seedling, multi‑sowing spring onions for efficient beds, and watering that keeps media evenly moist without drowning roots. Airflow, patience, and timing bring it all together—wait until mid‑February and you’ll have more light, steadier temperatures, and somewhere sensible to move plants on.

Ready to start strong and skip the leggy mistakes? Listen now, get your seed box, trays, and compost lined up, and join us next week for the full February sowing guide. If this helped, follow the show, share it with a grower friend, and leave a quick review to help more gardeners find us.

Why not come along to my Grow your own workshops where you will learn all about seed sowing and growing your own food. 

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Chapters

• 0:00 Setting The Stage For Seed Prep
• 1:10 Injury Update And Schedule Shift
• 1:14 Monthly Sowing Plan And Scope
• 1:45 Why January Sowing Is Too Early
• 2:25 Audit Your Seed Box And Viability
• 3:21 Germination Standards And What They Mean
• 5:20 Simple Home Germination Tests
• 6:01 Seed Age, Vigour, And When To Bin
• 7:34 Dates, Decline Rates, And Exceptions
• 10:19 Open Pollinated Vs F1 Hybrids
• 13:30 Trays, Modules, And Propagators
• 16:16 Heat, Light, And Avoiding Leggy Starts
• 18:15 Why Mid‑February Beats January
• 21:03 Essential Gear: Nice To Have Vs Need
• 22:40 Compost Choices: Peat And Peat‑Free
• 26:12 Making Your Own Seed Mix
• 28:00 Sowing Methods: Prick Out And Thin
• 30:03 Multi‑Sowing For Productivity
• 31:06 Watering Right And Preventing Damping Off
• 33:04 Airflow, Recap, And Next Steps
• 36:08 Workshops, Booking Details, And Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

How's it going everybody and welcome to episode 312 of Master My Garden Podcast? Now, this week's episode is an episode all about getting prepared to sow seeds. Not sowing seeds. I still we're we're not going to start that for another another little bit, but to get ready and to be prepared for for sowing seeds. I did mention in last week's episode that I was going to release this last week as a sort of a double episode and things conspired against me on that one. I took a tumble out of a loft and have you know damaged some uh shoulder ligaments quite badly, so I was laid up for a little bit. Yeah, still am. I have uh lots of outdoor work to do and really struggling to get any of that done. And yeah, need to need to rest it, but don't want to rest it or can't rest it uh either. So yeah, it's been a tricky week, hence the reason that this one didn't go out last week. Um but it is I suppose it is a kind of an important and a good episode to cover because next week we will get into the seed sewing guide for February. And what I'm going to do with those episodes is I'm going to start to bring in some more flowers as well. So it won't be just the vegetables and the herbs that we'll be covering, we'll bring in flowers into that as well. Uh, and a monthly sewing guide will come every month on covering off all of those. And yeah, but before we get sewing, you know, I still I still stand by it is way too early in January to sow. But it is very important to get organized and to line up your seed, know exactly what you're going to sow, have an idea where you're going to sow it. Outside all your prep work can be done, your bed preparation, your you know, weeding, your aerating of the beds, all of those things can be done and should be done. And then when you get into February, you're you're into your sowing mode, uh, albeit quite slowly, and we'll cover all that next month. Um so I suppose to to get prepared, obviously, it's it starts with the seed. So we need to have a look at what we have, and this is definitely something that I need to do in the coming weeks. So, firstly, take stock of what it is that you actually have, uh, what it is you want to grow, you know, bearing in mind some all the usual things. So you want your your regular stuff. So for me, it's you know, the spring onions, have I enough of that? Um I also need to check certain seeds where I would have bought them maybe three years ago, four years ago, five years ago. I need to check the viability of some of those. And you know, that's the important thing. Firstly, get your seed box open, your your look at your seed packets and have a check. And some information around that that's quite that can be quite helpful. If you buy seeds in your garden centre or online, the before seeds are packed into into a retail pack or into a you know pack that you will you will receive or buy, they there is a minimum sort of percentage germination that they're allowed to be sold at. Now, I'll tell you what that is in a minute, but the best seed companies are the best seeds that you'll get, they will typically be working at the really high end of germination. So, for example, um, you know, if you were getting 95 to an upwards percentage germination on a batch of seeds in a germination test, the as I say, the really good seed companies will be working at those sort of percentage levels for most varieties now. Some varieties can be a little bit tricky and so on, but for most varieties they will operate at that high percentage germination rate. So when you buy your seeds you know that are fresh for that year, you can look at them and you can say, right, there's a good chance that the germination here is going to be in around 95 to 100% in some cases. And that's um that's really important for a number of reasons. Um, number one, you're you're doing this act of sowing and you're expecting to get, you know, depending on what it is you're growing, 10 seedlings, 20 seedlings, 100 seedlings, whatever it is, again, depending on what it is you're growing. And if the if those rates are you know a lot smaller than that, it can impact your your harvests down the line. Now, the good thing at the these early stages is that you can spot these things and you can spot that germination isn't isn't wonderful. Last year I think I mentioned that I needed to do some kind of germination test on some older seed that I had. And when I did those germination tests, they actually, you know, any of the ones that I was a bit dubious on or wasn't certain on, and when I did the germination test, and the germination test is very simple. You get, you know, a little saucer, put some kitchen paper on it, wet that kitchen paper, put your seeds on it, and leave it in a light windowsill in your house for a couple of days and just see if you know ten seeds put out, seven germinate, eight germinate, then you have 70% or 80% germination and so on. Now typically my kind of rule of thumb is if if there was less than seven out of ten seeds germinated, I'd chuck out the seeds. Um but the other the other factor is that becomes that became apparent, especially over the last year, seeds where the germination was declining and I was still getting you know six or seven out of ten, and then you proceed to sow with those. I did find that the vigour of those seedlings and in turn those plants was a lot less on the older seed. Now you would think that once germinated and once growing, that you know everything will kick on, but there is a you know the seed is weakening, hence the seedling is weakening and the plant is weakening. So for me then then I would be you know a little bit more rootless when it comes to switching seed going forward. Um so that's the first thing you're getting your seed right. If you do have seed, just a kind of a good rule of thumb, when you buy it on day one, as I said, the really good seed companies will have high germination rates of 95 to 100%. Uh now just bear in mind that those 95 to 100% are in laboratory conditions, perfect conditions, giving it the perfect moisture, uh, heat, light, and so on. And and that that germination percentage is high. In a garden scenario, it will inevitably be a little bit less than that because it's just not as, you know, the conditions are just not as perfect as they would be in a laboratory setup. So let's say you have a good seed company that's giving you that 95 to 100% in the garden, that might be 90 to 95 as opposed to 95 to 100. So it's still very, very good and perfect. And on that seed packet, then you'll see that there'll be maybe two years use by date on it or so by date on it. And at that point in time, that doesn't mean that on that sowed by date that the seeds are gone. But what it does mean is that the seed, the seed germination rates will decrease a little bit, but in that first kind of year or two, they don't really change that much. So if they go into the packet at you know 95%, they'll generally hold around that percentage, maybe a marginal decrease, but not a lot. But after you go outside that kind of two-year use by or so by date, then the decline is quite quick after that. So a good rule of thumb is about 10% per year after the date. So again, to use that, let's say it goes into the packet at 95, there's a two-year date on it, two years time, immediately that will be dropped down to 85. It could even be a little bit more, as I said, those two years in between, it might decline slightly. So 85 at a minimum, and then the next year 75, 65. So the further, you know, once you go go past that a little bit, it's the decline is quite high. And as I say then, what I have found is that the the vigour of the seedling, and in turn the vigour of the plant is also affected. So the fresher the seed, the better. Now, there's certain seeds like parsnips, for example, that needs to be that year's seed. Really, after that, it's it's you're gonna struggle, and what you don't want to be doing is you know spending time and effort and sowing seeds and just not getting any return on it. Now, an odd time that can happen, you know, something goes wrong, something doesn't you know germinate or you get a bad batch of seed, that can occasionally happen. So don't worry about it. As I say, at this stage of the year, there's nearly always the opportunity to resow and so on. So it's not a big thing. But at this stage, what we're looking to do is to get our seeds lined up and to get what we're going to be sowing lined up, and that's the reason we're we're talking about these. Um, yes, so test your seed that you have, bear that ruling thumb in mind, do a little germination test, draw a list of what you're going to grow, what you want to grow, what you wish to grow, see what you have, and do a sort of a stock take and say, right, I need this, this, and this, and have that organized now. Um final thing on seeds before we move off them is most of you probably know this, but for any of you that are sort of beginners, maybe, there's a couple of different types of seed. There's two main types of seed that you can get. There's F1 hybrids and there's open pollinated seed. Now, open pollinated is basically seed that you sow, and at the end of if you want the seeds save seeds at the very end of that, or you know, into the following year, then that seed can be saved from that plant and it will be true to its original plant. So it'll be identical. And it tends to be, you know, it's a great way of keeping uh seeds in the system to keep them food in the system. It's a better, you know, it's a really it's a really important type of seed, open pollinated. So you save your seed, you your seed over time becomes accustomed to your area, as we heard, you know, in the episodes with the seed detective a couple of weeks ago. Um the seed becomes acclimatized to your area, grows hardy to your area, starts to grow better in your area, and you're retaining that loop within your own garden or within your own community. Uh, and that's really, really important. And that's open pollinated seed. And yeah, they're probably the best type of seed for you know for keeping seeds in a loop and building up resilience within within your your growing system and food systems. The other type of seed is F1 hybrids, and these are seeds that are bred for specific purposes in that they you know you might have a variety that is disease resistant, slightly disease resistant, or that's going to give you a certain size of vegetable of whatever type it we're talking about, you know, a specific size head or a specific specific size root, or it might be resistant to certain diseases or pests that you know that are that are you know in those crops. Um kind of an ex some examples of that might be in carrots, there's one called F1 fly away, and that's a variety of carrot that is resistant to carrot root fly, somewhat resistant to carrot root fly. And you know, that's the type of thing. Um I find it's quite useful on certain things, like for example, Brussels sprouts. I find that open pollinate Brussels Brussels sprouts can be a little bit sporadic, you're not sure what you're gonna get, they can be a little bit disease prone. Whereas I find F1 Brussels sprouts, for example, are generally you know what you're gonna get, and they tend to be a little bit more solid and a little bit more predictable. Um, but for the most part, open pollinate is a better type of seed to be using in the garden, and especially if you're going to be seed-saving and keeping seeds within your loop. So that's the kind of the seed element of a cover-off. The next thing is kind of the stuff that you need in order to you know to sow these seeds and to gather up these seeds and to kick off next month, and there is any amount of trays, gadgets, you know, stuff that you need, but uh they that sorry that you can use. I use the word need there, but you don't need, but but you can use so a lot of these things they're super useful, but they're not essential. So you just decide what it is that works for you. And like for me personally, uh seed trays are a must, uh particularly like, but you can make a seed tray out of anything, you can make a seed tray out of a grape punnet. Um, but for me, I like the rigid standard seed tray, you know, 14 inch by nine inch, I think it is, and they're rigid, has the holes in the bottom of it to allow for drainage, and they're inexpensive, they will last for years, they're rigid, they can be cleaned out, they can be kept from year to year, um and they're they're you know they're superb. Module trays then as opposed to a seed tray, so a module tray is basically a tray that has individual cells within the tray. A seed tray is an open tray where you put your compost in or your growing media in, then you sow your seeds into it. A module tray is broken down into smaller individual cells, and they're really, really useful and I would say essential for a lot of the early sowing of a lot of different vegetables, to be honest with you. So seed trays and modules trays, for me, I would class them as you know very important, not 100% essential, but certainly very, very useful and in my opinion, a must-have for everybody. Then you have propagators, so propagators can come in many forms. You can have a very simple propagator where again you have a plastic cover that goes over your standard seed tray or module tray, and it's the perfect size for it, has vented a vented top, it's a rigid plastic again that can be kept from year to year. Or you can have heated propagators, which are generally speaking, uh you plug them in, some are thermostatically controlled in that you can keep them to a certain temperature, or if the if the if it drops below a certain temperature, the soil drops below a certain temperature within the propagator, it will kick back in and will bring it back up to that temperature again. So you can have electric heaters which are thermostatically controlled or just constant on, and that'll give you that heat that you do need to germinate seeds. Um there is other options in terms of propagators, then you know, like on a s on a different scale, you can have things like hot beds, and hotbeds can be you get your heating cables, you run them up and down on your bed, you put insulation underneath them, uh, then you cover it with sand, and then you sit your seed trays on top of that. And it just creates a nice little warm atmosphere uh below the seed, the seed trays. You can also cover them over with propagation plastic, or you know, if you're in a greenhouse, you don't need to do that, but basically, in order to give them this warm zone around them as they as they germinate and as they start to grow into seedlings. So, in order to germinate, they need heat and they need moisture, and then they don't need light until they're actually germinated and become seedlings, and at that stage, then they need the light. And you know, we have the option at this in these early stages of bringing some stuff into your house because that is obviously a warm space generally. The light levels in you know on a windowsill can be okay at times, and we'll talk about light levels in a minute, but the light levels can be okay, so you can you can get you'll get germination quite quickly, and you just need to be careful then that you don't get you know leggy seedlings that get dragged because they're searching for light or in need of light. Other things that you can use, things like grow lights, I personally don't use them because well, why don't I use them? I suppose uh I can see a hundred percent why people would use them. They they give you that stability of light and they guarantee that you're not gonna end up with leggy seedlings. Personally, I just am a strong advocate of sowing at the right time, and by sowing at the right time you will have adequate light levels typically anyway. Um yeah, I was gonna talk about it later, but I might as well say now. So I always say that we don't start sowing until February. And you know, you will have heard me saying previously the reasoning for that, and especially I would be saying from the middle of February onwards. So even though next week we'll do the we'll do the seed sowing guide for the month ahead, generally speaking, I'm looking at kicking off around the middle of the month, around you know St. Valentine's Day, and that gives you from there to the end of the month a few weeks. But the reason I'm saying February is from the start of the month, this is just a general thing. Um on the first day of February, you know, we have sunrise in the morning at 8.09, and this is from a chart from can't remember the website, but some website that gives you the you know the sunrise and sunset in your locality for a given month or whatever. So for for here in Ireland, sunrise on the 1st of February is 8.09, and sunset is 17.08 or 8 minutes past five. So you can see there that's you know, that's a a short enough window of you know of daylight hours coupled with that. Typically this time of the year you can get you know overcast win uh rainy conditions and so on, and that means that the light levels are low. So even though we have daylight hours, there isn't that strong light, there isn't that good light that seedlings need to drive on. So light levels can be very, very low. If you contrast that to the end of the month, sunrise then is 7 15 and sunset is 1801 or one minute past six. Um, so that's in context, that's a difference of one hour and forty minutes, 45. Minutes from the start of the month to the end of the month. So by waiting until the middle of the month and sewing from the middle of February to the end, you're just availing of those natural additional daylight hours. Now that speeds up even further as we enter into March, and then light doesn't become an issue. But in these early stages, and that's why a lot of people are using these grow lights, is to sort of mimic the to increase the daylight because there just isn't enough at this stage of the year. My thing with that is always you still you can germinate these seedlings and you can grow these seedlings, but you still have to have somewhere to get them to plant out. And okay, if you have a tunnel and you have a warm tunnel, then that makes perfect sense that you get going really early and get them into your tunnel really early. But for me and for most people, February at the earliest and mid-February at the earliest is a good time to sow. Because if you push into you know seedlings going out in March time, that can be so variable as well. As you know, March of many weathers, it can be anything from 20 degrees Celsius heat to you know snow, uh, which we've had, was it two years ago, the beast from the east hit where we'd a week of you know snow on the ground, and it can be just so so random and different year to year. So you just don't know what you're gonna get. So that's why by having them if you've if you sow your seeds in January, for example, and you're using your grow lights, you're using your heated beds and so on, your seedlings are going to be ready by the end of February, and you just may not have anywhere to put them. So just a little bit of patience, a little bit of hold back at this stage, and and that'll be most useful for you. So that's kind of the bits you need. As I say, none of them are 100% essential, but I just find seed trays, modules trays, propagator lids, they're all very, very useful and helpful. I do have a heated propagator, I use that for some of the you know, the likes of tomatoes, the likes of peppers and so on. I I like using it for those because again, my polytunnel, I've mentioned it before, would be a lot cooler than a standard polytunnel because I have netted sides on it. So grow lights and heated cables, all those things are useful then as well, but you just need to choose for your setup the setup. If you're new to it, they are not essential, you don't need to have them, they're just useful. And as you get better, you know, or as you start to grow more and more varieties, then potentially you might need or use more of these things. The next thing that you're gonna need is your compost, and there's a lot of you know, there's a lot of talk and a lot of I suppose people are really against or seem to be really against peat. And it's you know, for any of our UK listeners, it's completely uh in retail horticulture, it's completely banned over there now. It could be in commercial horticulture as well, with very little of it available anyway. Um here in Ireland the situation is slightly different. We have a scenario where we are we are still using peat compost, and it is the predominant peat, you know, it is the predominant growing media sold through garden centres and so on. And I suppose for when it comes to sowing of seeds, there's very, very little that's in terms of compost that is better than peat. Now you can have your views on you know how good or bad the peat composts are, and I think I would again all of these things you have to put context on it. So to say that all peat-based composts are are wrong is fine, but it could show the viable alternative, and a lot of the time the the viable alternative that people are talking about is peat-free compost, which contains you know, here in Ireland typically cocoa coir, and so now that product has travelled or elements of that compost have travelled from the far side of the world to come here to be processed, to be manufactured, and to be put into that bag. And while I do understand the harvesting of peat is detrimental and it you know expend expends carbon out the locked-in carbon out of the soil and so on, what does shipping cocoa coir across the world do? So a bit of context on everything. For me, I use a couple of different ones, but I will typically use a peat-based growing media. And when I say I use it, I'm talking about maybe one maximum two 70 litre bags in the season. And I'll use that for sowing, you know, perennials, so perennial seeds that we, you know, that we've sown to grow along, all of those things, then they get planted into the soil, and they are, you know, especially the perennials, and that they're in the soil, they're locking in carbon after that. So the the scale of what I'm doing is so small. That doesn't mean that I'm saying that pea free comp or that peat compost is the only show in town, but I always look at the viable, you know, what people are saying is the viable alternative and the the greener alternative, and is it? So again, make your own choice on it. For me, like there's there's not there's very little that's as good as peat or sowing seeds because it's just so um you know it's just a brilliant, consistent product. Pete-free, I have tried, um seed sowing compost, uh seed and cutting compost, and the results in those have been really, really poor over any time I've tried them. There is a very good one called Classman that is you know highly recommended, very, very good product. It is it's expensive per litre, but I wouldn't worry about that per se. But the challenge tends to be that it's available online from you know three or four places, Frufield Farm being one and a couple of others. And you can buy your single bag, so it's 15 or 16 euro for whatever size bag it is, and then you have to put your your carriage on top. So it's a it's a it's an expensive compost, very, very good, really effective, very good, and again, as far as I know, and I stand to be corrected on that, it also contains cocoa coil. So am I really being green by you know or environmentally aware or friendly by using that above a single bag of peat that has come from a bog in Tipperary less than 40 minutes from my house? Again, that's the question you need to ask yourself. Um, but that class man one is an excellent, excellent seed sewing compost. The other seed sewing compost, peat-free ones that are on the market, I just find them extremely inconsistent. So you'll use a bag one day and you could get good results. You use it the next, you know, you use another bag of the same product and it's completely different. I also find that there is an element of seedlings germinating fine, but then stalling in these, and the reason for that is sometimes this peat-free compost, you know, is it's nutrient, it's low in nutrients anyway. So the when the seedling germinates, there isn't anything to sustain it, but more than that, sometimes this peat-free compost cannot may not be fully mature because it's coming from you know these big municipal sites, it's being processed very, very quickly. And if there is woody type material in it, it may not it may not be fully finished uh composting. And while it's finalizing its composting within the bag, it's extracting any nutrients that are in the in the compost. And so you can get good germination and good germination percentages, and but then it just stalls after that. So for me, you know, you can use the class man, that's a very, very good option. You will get good results, it's a good product, it will grow them on brilliantly. Uh it is peat-free, but it does contain cocoa coyers, just and then you can your other option is to use in small amounts a peat-based sewing compost. So that's that's the thing. But you do need a good quality, a good quality mix to ensure again that the sewing that you're doing is not going to waste. So if you do all the sewing, you know, on a given day, you say I'm going to start my February sewing, and then that the the compost that you use is poor or bad, then you've kind of wasted one window. So ensure you have that sorted. You can make your own mix. So if you're making your own compost, you can get, you know, to give a kind of an example, you're looking at 10 litres of your own compost, and that needs to be really sieved down, down to a really small mix, you know, a really small sieve amount. Um, and at that stage, that compost, it once it's fully mature, and that fully mature could be, you know, 18 months old, old compost. Um, sieve it all out so that it's really fine. Now that will not have much nutrients in it, so that's the first thing. It also can be quite, it can retain moisture too much, so it can be can be quite heavy in in sea trays and not loose enough. So in order to remedy those two those two things, um, actually leaf mould, really well rotted leaf mold will give you that same effect, you know. So let's say we're making a mix with either our own compost or our own leaf mold, and we make 10, we have 10 liters of it. Then we add to that uh about two and a half to three liters of perlite. And what the perlite is doing is that it's adding this aeration. So I said that that could be quite, you know, the compost could be quite sticky on its own. So we're adding this aeration with the perlite. And then into that as well, we will add some you know, seaweed, uh, some vermicompost, which I'm actually trying to source at the moment, and that will add the nutrients, you know, some nutrients to it. And mixing those together, you'll have 10 litres of a very, very good seed sewing mix. Uh, you will need to check it and make sure that everything works fine, um, but that's a good kind of ratio of you know, if you want to do your own. So there are your options for compost, and they're they're very important. When it comes to sewing, then um, as I say, we'll be starting the seed sewing guide next week. But when it comes to the sowing part of it, we're going to talk about um how to sow and what sewing is. So, sewing into a tray and then pricking out of those seedlings, we we would do that for space saving. So, sow seeds on top of the seed tray, sow them in a block, then we prick out the strongest of the individual seedlings, and we put them into say our module tray. So, we're pricking them out at a certain stage to move them into a bigger tray. This is very good if you have say a hot bed or a heated area, and you want to get that germination and that initial growth going, and then you want to grow them on further. And remember, at the sowing stage, things can be quite cold, daylight can be quite short, but by the time you're pricking out, say a couple of weeks later, you're into the long the days are stretching so and the temperatures are rising, so you're into that position where you can move them, and your need for space you'll in a seed tray you'll get a lot of seedlings into a very small space. Once you start putting into module trails, then your space increases, but you don't need to have it as climate controlled as you do at that sowing stage. So that's the reason why we would do the the sow, sowing and then pricking out. There's also tinning out, which we'll talk about a little bit as well. So thinning out is where we'll sow seeds. Sometimes, you know, especially if you're sowing seeds and you're not certain that you have really good, you're looking you're going to have really good germination on it, if the seed is slightly older, maybe. For example, on something like a cabbage or whatever, you might sow two seeds into the same module tray or whatever, and then when the two seedlings come up, you might notice that one of them is much, much more strong or stable than the other one, and you'll prick out so or you'll tin out, so you'll basically take out one of those seedlings, discard it, and then that leaves the stronger one. But it gives you the opportunity to, if you're working with seed that's maybe not as fresh, you put your two seedlings, two seeds in, you know, surely one of those is going to germinate. Um, if one only one germinates, then grapes you still have your plant. But if two germinate, you take out one of the weaker ones, and then you're still left with your plant in your in your module tray. So that's that's um tinning out, pricking out is moving it to the next stage of growth, you know, especially if you're utilising a small warm bed or hot bed in those initial germination stages. Um, multi-sowing as well, we'll do that with certain crops, things like um spring onion. Multi-sowing is where we'll sow several seeds into a single module. And the reason for that is they're quite comfortable germinating together, becoming seedlings together, and maturing together. So we sow them all together and we just get way more productive beds by multi-sowing certain crops. Um, so that's something else we'll be talking about. The watering, then, and this is this is the one that most people kind of struggle with. They don't know how much water to to give seedlings, to give uh seeds just after they sowed them, and they also don't know how to water, and it is it sounds like uh something really basic, but it can have uh such an impact on the success that you have. And the the big thing is you you need to have enough moisture to you know to germinate the seeds, and then you need to have enough moisture for the seedlings to grow on, but you always want to be growing slightly on the dry side. Now, how do I explain that to you? It's quite difficult, um, but you never want to feel that you've added a lot of weight to the tray. You know, if it feels like that, then you're watering too much. An easy way of doing it is um you know get us a spritz or a little sprayer and just spray the tray. So after you've sewed, give it you know a good spray on the top. You with a sprayer like that, you can give it you know 10 sprays per seed tray or per cell of a of a of a of a propagation tray, and you won't over water, you know, because it's only a little spray, but you'll definitely get enough moisture on it. But with a watering can you can do a lot of harm because a lot of the time the roses can be quite aggressive. So you use your rose, you spray, and it kind of washes out the seedings. What you want to do is have a really fine mist and mist them up. Once they've germinated, then ensure that they have enough moisture so the top of the tray can look a little bit dry, but once you put your finger down into it slightly, you want to be able to feel moisture, and so it's kept slightly dry and you're but always giving it enough water, and that's going to be really important for things like you know, phytophthora or you know, root diseases or damping off, or you'd see the the seedlings will germinate, and if they're really kept wet or too wet in a compost, then they can just rot at the base and just fall over. And you don't want to have that, so you want to have it that they're slightly dry but still have enough to grow. That's a tricky one to I suppose show or or mention on a on a podcast because it's hard to visualize it, but you're generally trying to grow on the drier side, but obviously you want to keep them growing at the same time. The other thing that'll be really important for your seedlings after they germinate is air movements. We want to keep air moving through again for that reason, um, disease prevention and so on. It also make them a little bit hardier, a little bit more resilient going forward. So they're kind of all the things that we need to do. So, number one, check out your seeds, make sure you have your seeds ready, check that the seeds you have are viable, check that you have all the varieties you need, or that you want, or if you're going to trial something, or if you're gonna experiment with seeds, you know, do all of that now before we kick off seed sowing around the middle of February. Uh, then the type of seed we're talking we talked about F1, then open pollinated, then we're into what we need in terms of equipment, you know, seed trays and so on. Uh then we spoke about compost, just make your your choice there, have that organized as well, have it ready. If you're using something that you haven't used before, just ask in the in the shop or ask, does anybody, has anybody used this before, anyone previous with it, any previous results with it? Um and bear in mind, but I said around you know peak free and and so on. So they're your considerations there. Uh then we're into the sewing part, which we'll cover more of in the coming weeks, and the watering. And they're all the the bits and pieces that we need to be aware of before we start sewing next month. As I say, next week's episode will be that actual sewing guide. So we're going to outline what it is that we can sew in the coming month. And yeah, that'll uh but this episode sets us up for that. As I said, I meant to get this out last week, but this injury really has hampered me on that front. So yeah, hopefully now all improving from now on. In terms of the grow your own workshops, there is some places, I think four maybe or five places left on the 21st of February workshop. There's a few more left on the March. I think there's about seven or eight left on the March one. Um, yeah, lots of people seem to be coming in pairs. So I'll put the link here in the in the show notes of this episode as well. Definitely if you want to go to the February one, you want to be booking that because it is, yeah, there's only a few places left on that. But people do seem to be coming in pairs, and really looking forward to that's going to be a nice, you know, a nice day. We will be covering in depth seed sowing. So anything that you know that we've talked about there, we'll cover in depth. We'll show you how to sow. Um, one of the big things that came up, you know, when I previously ran these workshops was trying to get that continuity of supply and not really knowing how to do that. So we'll be covering all of that. Um, we'll be covering planting out, sewing potatoes, uh, onions, fruit trees, fruit bushes, herbs, all of that. So we'll be covering everything like that. And yeah, link in the show notes. Anyone interested in those? If you have any questions, just shoot me a message. So 21st of February, 21st of March, they're they're available now to book. And more workshops coming up. They won't be to grow your own food, it's just those two that I'll be doing this year. The next ones are are slightly different and they'll be announced soon as well. Um, so for now, that's been this week's episode. Next week's episode, as I say, will be the the seed sowing guide for the month of February, and then we'll be up and running for the month, albeit starting slowly, and month by month, then we'll be In and going through a list of what we should be sewing in the month ahead. And that's been this week's episode. Thanks for listening, and until the next time, happy gardening.