I got to drive the Gator for the first time, which is like small four wheel drive, with an open space in the back to put in tools etc. There are no gears, turning a key switches it on, it runs on petrol, has a lever for forward or reverse, a brake and an accelerator footpad, you can control the speed with the latter by how hard to press down on it by foot.
Me and Stewart continued the digging up and redistributing of Cyclamen hederifolium.
Seed sowing masterclass
Seed sowing
- Seed sowing compost used is a peat free coir, loam, bark and maybe sand mix made by Melcourt and is their 'Silver Mix', so has a lot of fibres and it is best to use gloves to handle as you can get a lot of mini splinters. They also use Trefmix which is 70/ 50 coir and perlite.
- First rub out lumps in compost to a fine texture.
- They tend to use four sized types of pots. We were using a 'pan' which fits 20 - 100 seeds (see handouts for more information).
- Overfill the pan with soil, for fine seed firmly tap down on bench, for medium seeds upwards do not tap.
- Using a scoring tool (a piece of wood about 5x5cm), starting from the middle remove excess soil.
- Use a tamper/ presser board, if there is not one to size, a smaller one will do, gently tamp the soil down.
- For a fine seed you have a smaller lip between soil and pot for watering (2mm), for a larger seed about 10mm. This is the case so that smaller seeds has less distance to reach light.
- Water before you sow very thoroughly, so that water has filtered all the way through the pot. Rose should be pointing upwards and started away from the pot first, so that there are no big drips making craters in the soil.
- Sometimes a fungicide is used - T34 biocontrol Trichoderma or Serenade (half a teaspoon per can; if it's under -15°C it won't work).
- Ideally water is left to percolate for half an hour
- For practice we used Erysium cheiri as our medium seed. We put a 5p sized amount in the palm of our hand which would roughly be 100 seeds. Then with middle finger and thumb we pinched the seeds and sprinkled them as evenly as possible in the pan, working from the outside first to the centre, and going over any gaps after.
- The seeds then were covered with 10mm of vermiculite or what is required. If vermiculite is unevenly spread/ lumpy, best to tap it to try and even it out, rather than scraping it level - as this will lift/ disturb the seeds.
- Label - here they like the date at the top, our name, and then the plant name, it is to be written in capitals. The label is then put at the back of the pot, facing forwards. An accession number is given if required and appropriate forms filled in. Records are made of all seeds sown.
- Annuals do not have an accession number.
- For the fine seed we used Begonia (Sedum's are also some of the smallest seeds). As these are so small about a quarter of a 5p will be about 100 seeds. As it's so fine, it is mixed with sand in the palm x2 its mass. Then we tap the side of our hand from a good height (about 15cm) to release them into the pot (Photo 1). Sometimes a folded piece paper is used. Small seeds are not covered.
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| Photo 1: Sam demonstrating sowing fine seeds from a good height and by tapping the side of the hand. |
- A good seed germination source and database is virtualseeds.com. Begonia's need at least 25°C to germinate
- You can store seeds at 5°C, this is not stratification - you actually have to put seed in compost for this process to start.
- Surface sown seeds need protection of sorts. Vermiculite covered ones don't.
- Misting helps soften seeds coats.
- Cyclamen are covered with black polythene, as they don't need light to germinate.
- There are no point sowing seeds like Echinacea too early - these are started around now.
Pricking out:
- Always handle by seed leaves.
- Two true leaves and they're ready.
- Use fat end of dibber.
- If overcongested and are small seedlings - can prick out as small groups to begin with.
- Module grown seedlings are next potted on in 9cm pots.
(Again see handouts for more information).