Today I thought I’d try something that I’ve been purposely avoiding … planting seeds. I’ve never planted seeds before in my life – and fear of failure and thereby revealing a serious lack of “green-fingerness” has kept me from trying this. (I do recall planting beans on cotton wool as a child but that’s as far as it went – I have no recollection of what happened to the beans after they sprouted – I’m guessing they died).
But now I’ve been dabbling in this wonderful world of gardening, my Camellias are flowering successfully and I have a veggie planter full of thriving veggies and my confidence levels are up! Plus, I keep reading about how rewarding and easy it is to grow plants from seed, so I decided … the time is now! I have the perfect little planter that’ s been waiting around for some action, compost in a bag and a collection of seeds in packets. The biggest decision I had to make was which seeds to plant. I have Marigolds, California poppies, Nasturtiums, radishes, carrots, chives and onion seeds, all in little packets that I’ve been buying – though why I bought them when I had no intention of sowing them I’m not quite sure (OK, I’m an impulse shopper and those colourful little seed packets just look so darn cute!)
[one_half]Before …
[/one_half]
[one_half_last]and After
[/one_half_last]
I chose to plant the nasturtiums. The reason I chose them is because the seeds felt really big through the packet – so I thought that would be easiest as my first attempt because I can handle them without dropping them all over the place. The “type” according to the packet is Nasturtium “Scarlet Jewel”. Now I see the packet says to plant directly into flower beds – why oh why do I always read the instructions AFTER I do something? Nevermind …
It all went quickly and easily – not too much mess, no fuss. I covered the planter box drainage holes with stones, added the compost to the plant box, firmed it down to get rid of air pockets and then took the seeds out of the packet, spaced them equally around the planter and then covered them with a 4mm layer of compost. Firmed it all down again, placed it on my plant shelf and gave it a good watering. The packet says to keep the seeds moist whilst they germinate and that germination takes six to ten days. We shall see … this better work or I will be mortified!
I’ll report back in 6 – 10 days, hopefully with sprouting nasturtiums!
Any advice on how to complete project “Christine plants seeds” successfully, will be most appreciated!
Happy gardening
xxx
Hi Barbie – I promised I would tell you as soon as I see something happening … and my First Attempt at Planting Seeds appears to be successful! We have little seedlings coming up in the planter box – So far I have about ten coming up of the +/- 30 I planted. I’m moving the planter box to a sunnier position now that I am a little more confident in my abilities to take care of a few seeds :).
