I have been told to ensure that I use disinfected seed boxes. What is the best way to disinfect a seed box?
The best way to clean seed-boxes is to scrub them thoroughly with a stiff brush and hot, soapy water.
Ensure that all traces of old compost and fibrous roots have been removed. Then soak the boxes in a solution of a proprietary disinfectant for an hour or so. Finally, rinse them again in clean water and allow them to dry thoroughly before storing them. This is an operation best done as soon as the boxes are finished with each season, rather than keeping them, dirty, until the following spring.
Why are some seeds so much more difficult than others to achieve success with?
Many seeds have a means to prevent or inhibit germination from occurring at a time when the general environment is unsuitable for the young seedlings to grow. For example, there would be no point in the seeds of most plants germinating as they fall from the parent in the autumn if the subsequent winter temperatures would kill the young plants. Similarly, the seeds of many plants that originate from climates more extreme than ours require hard, thick coats to enable them to survive very high or very low temperatures.
Even more clever is the adoption of a thick coat by the seeds of plants that live in climates with marked seasonal rainfall. Clearly, a single shower of rain provides insufficient moisture for a seedling to live for very long, but a thick seed coat, softened and penetrated only by a prolonged downpour, ensures that the seed will not germinate until the environment contains enough moisture for the continued survival of the resulting plant. So some seeds germinate easily with moderate moisture and warmth; others require prolonged exposure to the same conditions while others require special treatment. Among the commoner tricks to induce germination are placing seeds in a fridge or freezer (or leaving them outside during the depth of winter) in order to mimic a natural cold spell, chipping the surface of very hard seeds to facilitate the emergence of the seedling and even scorching some seeds to simulate either baking summer temperatures or the natural occurrence of brush or forest fires. Although rather different, it is worth mentioning also the treatment of some very small seeds such as lobelia and fibrous-rooted begonia which contain insufficient food reserves to enable the seedlings to reach the light if they are buried, even minimally, in compost. Such seeds should always be scattered thinly on the surface therefore and then carefully kept moist.
What does 'hardening off' mean and how do I do it?
Hardening off is the process by which plants grown under protection are accustomed gradually to outside conditions so that tougher tissues form that are more able to tolerate the harsher conditions. The best way of hardening off plants is by using a cold frame - an unheated, usually wooden enclosure with a removable glass cover.
When plants are grown under conditions of artificially high warmth and moisture, their cells tend to be relatively large, the tissues as a whole contain an abnormally high amount of water, and the outer surfaces of the plant are thin. If they are then placed outside, they will be very prone to desiccation, to cold damage and, because of their cell structure, to be physically weak. I find the best way to use a cold frame is to leave it closed for the first week, open in the daytime but closed at night for the second and then open day and night for the third; after which the plants can be placed fully outside.
Is it worth saving seed of my annuals for planting again next year?
Only in a few cases, or if you deliberately want to see if any hybrids have been produced. For the best quality annuals, buy afresh each year from our seed list.
Collecting seed from a plant in your garden, cleaning it, storing it over winter and then sowing it next year to produce a fresh crop can be rewarding but it is also time consuming. Never save seed from an F 1 hybrid variety because the resulting plants will be a genetic hotchpotch and bear little resemblance to their parent. F1 hybrid seed must be raised afresh from new crossings each year; which is why it tends to be more expensive than other seed. Never save seed from plants that are in any way sickly or abnormal; they may well be diseased and such affliction could be passed on to the progeny. Always store seed carefully; for one year, it can be kept most easily in small paper packets in a fridge. And, most importantly, never offer for sale any seed that you have saved; it is possible that the variety has Plant Breeders' Rights protection which means that only the breeder who owns these rights is legally entitled to sell it.
What is your advice about propagators?
There is a limit to what you can achieve with home-made propagators and I strongly recommend a purpose-made model. We have a range from simple covered plant pots to fully controllable electric propagator models.
As its name suggests, a propagator is a device to aid the propagation of plants, especially by seeds and cuttings. At its simplest, therefore, a propagator can be no more than a seed tray, although a naked seed tray filled with compost won't propagate plants very well without some sort of cover, even if it is only a plastic bag. Although seeds will not germinate well in a growing medium that is allowed constantly to dry out, seedlings will rapidly succumb to damping-off if they remain for long after germination in a saturated atmosphere. Cuttings, on the other hand, need a moist environment around them for very much longer. A simple seed tray can be covered temporarily with a plastic bag, but a rigid, clear plastic cover is much more convenient. The better versions have a small ventilator to regulate the moisture content of the atmosphere within. Larger propagators comprise one covered container into which several small seed trays can be placed. After moisture, the second requirement is warmth. The simplest way to provide this is to place a single, small seed tray indoors on a window ledge in a south-facing aspect but to make a really early season start with seeds, some form of additional heat is necessary. The most basic aids are flat pads containing heating elements and which are either placed inside the seed tray (and are, therefore, inefficient in that they cannot be re-used until the seed tray is finished with), or placed beneath several separate seed trays. Some have thermostatic control and some operate on low voltage through a transformer. More complex and costly are the propagators with individual, thermostatically controlled heaters in the base.
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