I hate sowing seeds I've decided

Post my trauma with the Celery where the whole packet of "dust" seeds came out in a oner when being sown (now have seed tray of Cress like appearance)and none of the seedlings are exactly roaring along.Maybe they'll improve when I pot them on.
Anyway I have now had another incident. Decided while the snow is falling it seemed the ideal time to sow my Tomatoes (bonkers I know) in my heated propagator.
Got all organised and opened the little packet of Sungold, fine then decided I'd open the packet completely so I could see exactly how many were in the packet of approx 10 as indicated. WELL as I did this the whole lot disappeared skywards as if on springs...much swearing. I have been on my hands and knees trying to find the "10". Managed by some miracle to find 6 so god knows where the rest are. Luckily I bought Sungold in sort of bulk (got 10 packets last year) so at least I don't have to order more. I really am getting very ham fisted in my old age

 

I sow lots of Lobelia - love the plant - the seeds are also like powder.

My approach is to empty the whole lot out into the palm of my hand - take a pinch - and scatter over the seed tray surface. No attempt to try and use seed cells - as the seeds are very difficult to see and broadcast evenly.

When I have a solid block of Lobelia - cut into squares with kitchen scissors and plant. Seems to work for me.

I started off some seeds last month - they're about 1.5" high at the moment - should get an early/longer show this year.

 

Just water the greenhouse floor and wait for the others to come up Silu

 

Oh yoo hoo hoo and a bottle of Arsenic to you. The "incident" occurred in the kitchen and while my kitchen floor is less than pristine I doubt there is enough compost on it to support seeds. Hey that gives me a very good excuse to not clean it for the next 2 months.

 

I got tomatoes coming up in my car from where I scraped the chopping board

 

Vacuum the kitchen floor, scatter contents of dust bag onto compost, water and wait.

 

I like them too and that is why I always wait until they are reduced at my local nursery when I buy the well grown bedding. I tried a few times to grow them from seed....too powdery and you need to sprinkle water several times a day to get them to germinate so eventually gave up. What I now do works.

 

Now that's a scientists solution to your problem Silu

Not grown Lobelia for a few years , doing them this year. I'll just buy the trailing and bush type from the nursery. When sowing fine seed , I mix them into a small amount of silver sand (kiln dried sand ) and then spread the sand + fine seed mix over my compost
Now they only sell silver sand in 20kg bags so the bag I bought will last for one or two millenniums. @silu , if you would like some silver sand for sowing just PM me and I'll post you some.

 

Oh @HarryS you did make me laugh. I had constructed a sand and rubber sand arena for the horses to be ridden on about 15 years ago. It is now surplus to requirements. Would anybody like a little of my 180 tonnes of silica sand?!!! which I suspect is the same as silver sand? Very kind thought Harry but "coals to Newcastle" comes to mind...however, I'd never thought of nicking a bit of it for horticultural purposes. I can see the sand arena may start to resemble my garden which is pitted with holes from people buying plants.

 

At around £3/£3.50 for 10 seeds, Sungold is not cheap. My packet will last 3 years as I only want 3 plants this year.

I remember sowing 1,000s of Lobelia seed in seed trays for the Parks Dept, sown in drills but gave up when pelleted seed was introduced back in the late 90's and dropped 5/8 seed per cell and nothing else to do but water. With lob seed just don't sneeze while sowing!!

The last few years my trailing Lobelia self sowed everywhere so I pricked out the seedlings in January (which had taken several frosts and zero temperatures) and grew them on in the heated greenhouse, by April, they needed trimming!

 

Try sowing Fern spore.......