Mr.Cuthbert – Seed Raising

Today I can see why New Resolutions are so popular ! It’s just as hard trying to remember how to do the things you used to do. I enjoy writing, especially on tomatoes ! But today my brain seems to be as engaged as pine needles on threadbare Christmas trees. So I am very glad to have Mr. Cuthbert’s words of good sense to turn to instead! Today we are looking at the section on Seed Raising:

Seed Raising

This guide is intended for amateurs and not for professionals, so I am going to assume that you will either have to obtain a ready-made seed compost from your local merchant or improvise a makeshift from your own garden.

An excellent medium in which to sow tomatoes is John Innes Seed Compost, which can be supplied by most seed merchants. It is ready blended and sterilized.

If you decide to make up your own compost, remember that for seeds and tiny seedlings a rich mixture is neither necessary nor desirable. A blend of some good loam, mixed with leaf-mould, a little sand and some clean road-grit will produce a good home-made recipe. It must be free of weeds and soil-bourne disease, but I am personally against putting any such mixture through a fine sieve. This not only removes the worst elements, but also the best. If you prepare your compost at home, leave it  the warm greenhouse for at least twenty-four hours before sowing in order, so to speak , to take the chill off.

Now a word about the seed itself. Buy an approved variety from a completely reputable source and you may be sure that you will have a good strain free of seed-bourne disease.  I have known some beginners start by buying an ounce of tomato seed. When you realize that there are 8,000 seeds to an ounce – enough to plant a third of an acre! – you will appreciate that a single packet costing a shilling or so will more that meet any ordinary needs.

If  you want to raise no more than a dozen or so plants, then I suggest you sow the seed in 6-inch pots or clay pans; if you want to grow more than this, then shallow boxes, approximately 14 by 9 by 2 inches, are more suitable. Whatever containers are used, they should be throughly cleaned and sterilized at least two weeks before you start sowing.

If you sow in pots, the lower half should be filled with broken crocks or cinders to provide good drainage; pans and shallow boxes will require rather less drainage material. As a rule, a layer of coarse fibre or old leaves, spread over the bottom of the box to prevent the soil from being washed through the cracks, will be sufficeint; and the crocks in pots and pans should have a light covering of some coarse material for the same reason.

The condition of the compost at the time sowing is important. It must be neither too wet nor too dry. If clenched in the  hand, it should retain the mould of the fist, yet break apart freely if lightly tapped; this is a good test for condition.

Mix your compost throughly with a spade, chopping it up until it is reasonably fine and removing large stones and other rubbish.

With this prepared mixture, fill you seed receptacles, a little at a time and pressing it down lightly. Don’t simply pile it into the pots and boxes and then ram the surface down flat. Take your time over it and make sure it is pressed down at the edges or round the perimeter, otherwise the soil may sink when it is watered and the seeds will be lost. Fill the receptacles to about 1/4 inch from the top and level off the surface with a flat piece of wood.

There are two schools of seed-sowing, which I may describe as “thick” and “thin”. The first method is for those who prefer to “prick-off” the seedlings into boxes spacing them out about one and a half inches each way. Germination is usually a shade quicker when the seed is sown thickly, but in any case, seedlings should appear in seventeen to twenty days. “Pricking -off” should be done as soon as the first pair of leaves has developed, and this should be about a week after germination.

The “thin” school of seed-sowing favours sowing single seeds spaced out one and half inches each way and half an inch deep. For the beginner, this method has much to commend it, particularly if he is not very adept at the delicate job of “pricking-off”, since it avoids the possible danger of a check to the tiny seedlings.

Finally, after sowing, water the seeds in carefully.

I have to admit to laughing, kindly, at the very idea of there being enough road-grit avaliable, to allow for gritting of roads and growing of tomatoes. But may be it’s a different kind of grit !

I got a bit confused by the notion of “thick” and “thin” sowing – as both seemed to have the same spacing – but after reading a few times I am wondering if that refers to the spacing once the seedlings have been “pricked-out”. However what it does is demonstrate how handy it now is to have things like module and cell trays to raise seeds in. Although I now want to know the physiology behind why germination happens more quickly when seed is sown thickly …. Just when you think there are no mysteries left !!