Some tips for the sowing season

imagine that you are looking for a soft crumbly fine textured soil ultimately to sow your seeds into. Failing this dig over the area and allow a few good dry days to help make the soil more workable. Break up the soil with a rake picking out any stones or obvious weeds and roots as you go. Remove any clods that won’t break up, don’t be afraid to get your hands dirty though as two clods rubbed together will often break up nicely.

What you are looking for is to create a soil with the texture of breadcrumbs know as a fine tilth. But we and our soils are not perfect so try to work the best with what you have. Firm the area to be sown with the head of a rake, light walk over or plank and walk. We don’t want compaction but we do want a firm seed bed. With flower seeds we want a random natural look so at this point you can evenly scatter seeds over the prepared soil then lightly pull the back of rake over to cover the seeds and work them into the soil and then lightly firm.

With vegetables you generally want straight rows so start by using a string line or bamboo cane to give you this. With the corner of a rake or hoe or hand or stick create a straight sowing drill in the soil. Mark either end of the drill with a written label so it is identifiable later. The depth of this drill and the seed spacing depends on the seed being sown so always read the labels for specific instructions. After sowing lightly pull back soil to fill in the seed drill and lightly firm.

Water both types of sowings with a fine rose so as not to wash the seeds away, particularly those sown near the surface. Watch out for slug attacks on seedlings and over sowing ‘damping off ‘ [rotting] from fungal diseases, although outside this tends to be less of a problem than undercover. As the seeds germinate they will undoubtably be joined by an army of weed seeds, make sure you know one from the other and hand weed regularly.