Seed Mat Trial

I had a go at making some seed mats with the kids today. I was inspired after reading a 'how to' at Annies Kitchen Garden, found via Thomas's blog. I'm also about to start taking some gardening classes at Alex's school and thought it might be a good rainy day activity for them, so a trial run was in order. Annies instructions provide good detail - here's my abbreviated version.

 Choose your paper - first I used a paper towel that I separated into two pieces - was worried that a 2ply piece might be too thick. Mark your seed spacings with a felt pen. This is for carrots, so I decided about an inch apart. My direct sowing of carrot seed is always rather haphazard, so I'm curious to see if this method works. There's a lot of initial preparation in this, but it may pay off in the long run. I know from experience that thinning carrots can be rather painful.

 Then you put a dot of water soluble glue on each mark.

Then convince your children that it will be fun to wet  a toothpick and pick up the seeds and place each one on a glue dot. Melina liked doing it, Alex wasn't so sure about it. Again no need for so-called educational toys around here - this was fab for hand-eye coordination, the perfect challenge level for a four year old.

Second 'seeding' was of rocket on toilet paper. I'm going to sow one length of paper every couple of weeks to see if I can get a good planting succession going using a minimal amount of space. Will let you know how it works.