hello
and a very warm welcome back to the
garden it's the first of march
and that means lots of sewing and lots
of planting and that's exactly what i'm
going to be doing today today i'm going
to show you
the full process that i do for sowing
seeds in
modules now growing undercover is
fantastic because you can extend the
season
and you have that protection so it's
easier to look after your seedlings
because cold weather is still very much
about
now the first thing that you've got to
consider
when sewing your modules is what kind of
module trays
are we going to use so for decades us
homegrowers have been having to rely on
these
second rate kind of plastic trays
that unless you treat them with extreme
care
and caution will only last two or three
seasons at most they very easily rip
now in recent years due to increased
environmental
awareness and demand we now have much
better access
to horticulture or industry-grade module
trays like this
and made out of solid plastic many of
which
are from recycled plastic and these
are an absolute game changer because
these have revolutionized
module sewn for home growers before they
weren't available to us
because you could only buy them in the
hundreds of thousands but now you can
buy them
in the dozens and the fact that they can
last
up to 15 years potentially more is just
absolutely
amazing now there are four
main module tray sizes that i use and if
you want to know where i get these from
these are from
container white so if you're in the uk
you can buy these from container wise
they are obviously going to be heftier
in price
but the fact is you're buying quality
and especially when you're gardening and
the fact that you can work with these
um quite quickly you don't have to be
careful when you're planting out or
sewing in them
it's going to save you a lot of time in
the long run so there are four different
sizes
here and the first size uh is a smaller
size
these are around 30 ml in width
and this is great for smaller seedlings
such as spinach
lettuce fennel and perhaps things like
flowers
such as cosmos and then
the next size up that i love to use this
is around
42 millimeter width this is the one that
i use the most i find it to be the most
versatile
whether it's your salads even brassicas
uh root vegetables
this is absolutely a dream to work with
uh and
i think i need to get more of these now
this here is a much larger one
and to be completely honest with you it
was something that i didn't know i
needed
until i gave it a go so this is around
75 millimeter in width
so it's like uh like the size of a
standard pot
and the strength of this is if you have
particular seedlings that you want to
grow on that
can't go out because perhaps there's not
enough space such as brassicas
you can either transplant them from this
and put them on into these
or you can use this to start things like
herb cuttings and you can keep them in
here
for as long as you want and you don't
have to worry about them
running out of nutrients and compost
and then the final one which is
absolutely brilliant
this is a deep celled one that has
replaced
these root trainers root trainers are
great but unfortunately
they only for me last around five
seasons even when i'm trying to be
really careful
so this deep cell one is absolutely
brilliant
for starting uh plants that like deeper
roots
for example your broad beans the next
cool part of module sewing
is understanding what kind of medium
you're going to be sowing your seeds
into and of course that's going to be
compost now i
honestly believe that the whole idea of
sewing and compost has been over
complicated
over the last however many years i'll
tell you something i only use homemade
or multi-purpose
compost i don't buy any sort of kind of
special seed starting mixed etc
i find it to be a little bit of a waste
of money
and everything seems to be working well
from things like
tomatoes and aubergines all the way
through to lettuce but i'll show you a
few things
that's actually going to help so the
first thing which
is the best if you have access to it
it's actually loads
of beautiful homemade compost now this
compost is made
using the lazy composting method so you
can check out the video in the corner to
find out more about that
all i do for using compost when
sowing is to give it an extra few months
whereas normal compost might be ready
after six to eight months perhaps 12 on
a particularly bad year
i'll give this at least 12 months
preferably
just over a year to properly break down
and the reason why i like it to properly
break down is that it gives a
chance to have a lot of biology it
creates a good tilth
um but one thing you might find is that
you don't actually have that much
homemade compost so what you can do
is you can actually dilute it so you can
have two handfuls of homemade compost
and then add in a full handful of soil
from the garden from one of your raised
beds just to help
the compost last a little bit longer now
if you find that your particular
homemade compost is drying out too
quickly
what you can do is on purpose make a
load of leaf mold or if you have a local
woodland or forest nearby
get a little bit of leaf mold and you
can do the same you can add
two handfuls of compost to one handful
of leaf mold or even one handful of
compost to one handful of leaf mold
mix it up and then use that as a
brilliant low-cost
and highly effective potting medium and
that isn't going to dry out too quickly
and we'll come on to tricks
of stopping compost drying out towards
the end of the video
now another thing you might want to do
is to actually buy
compost and there's there's two that i
would recommend the first
is the soil association approved
approved organic compost this
melcort um this is really nice things
uh to start off um your seedlings in
again you can dilute this down with soil
as well
and another great one to use is stale
foot as well
dale foot is also organic so if you're
out of homemade compost or you want to
use your homemade compost for mulching
the beds
and then you can buy those just make
sure that it's
organic approved and you're good to go
now something you might be wondering is
do i need to sieve
the compost and i never bother even if
i'm sewing really fine seeds for example
lettuce all i do is if i do see quite a
big thing
like that or that i just pull it out but
chances are the compost is broken down
so much they've got that lovely crumbly
texture you hardly need to pull anything
out i find sieving
a little bit of a waste of time and it
doesn't happen in nature so why do we
need to do it in the garden
it's now time to come to actually doing
the process
of planting seeds in modules so this is
my
potting bench really simple this here
is kind of a potting bench tidy so you
can either build your own out of some
scrap wood or you can
buy it um online the idea for this
is when you're using your compost i'm
using the melchor one here
is you're not gonna spill the compost
over all of the sites
so it means kind of minimal waste
and if you need extra compost you can
just like scrape it all together
it's just really easy to work with less
mess and it means
that you can work faster as well so the
first thing you want to do
is to grab whatever module you're going
to be doing i'm going to show you
firstly sewing radish in these and then
i'm going to show you um
sewing field beans in the deeper one
so the first stage get it there and then
you just want to basically
cover it with compost
so you basically can't see the tray
underneath
and then gradually you're going to press
down and
away so you can see
that this is looking pretty good
now there's another thing that i like to
do after this i like to firm it in
because uh
it means it's easier to pull out the
seedling with with a firmer soil and i
can
i can fit more in so i just kind of go
in
with my fingers like that
pressing it down not too hard but you
know a nice you know like a nice firm
handshake
it's kind of that kind of translation in
terms of putting the compost in
and then you do the same you place it
over the top like
that spread it out
and that is ready for a soaking of water
once you've filled it with the compost
you want to actually give it a really
good soaking
because it makes it a lot easier after
you soak the compost well
and let it sit for about five to ten
minutes so it properly permeates
it makes it so much easier to make the
holes in which you're going to plant the
seeds
otherwise if you don't do this method
you'll find that the compost actually
falls back in
on itself
so give it a good water let it stand for
about five or ten minutes
and then we can move on to the next step
so this has had a nice soaking it's
kind of been standing for about five
minutes it's ready for the next stage
and that's about making the holes
so there's a couple of ways of doing it
if you don't like to get your hands
dirty
you can use something like a pen um to
make
holes at whatever depth you want however
i prefer just to keep things simple
and to use my fingers and what you can
do is you can use multiple fingers at a
time
to make the desired hole and i never
strive for perfection
people can really easily get caught up
on how deep to make the holes
as long as you keep it at an approximate
depth depending
on what you're sewing is still going to
grow fine i'm going to be
sewing some radish here so i don't want
them to be super deep
um so i'm just going to make some holes
around the depth that i like so you can
see
quite easily
how quickly just doing this method that
these holes
are ready and if any too shallow i just
go back over
and make sure that they're fine so next
thing to do is to grab
the seeds and i'm going to be using a
multi sewing method
for these for these radish multi sewing
will be a kind of a whole video in
itself the best person to find out about
multi-sewing
is charles dowding um it's been the
method has been used for
industrial horticulture for many many
years as a way of
growing multiple plants in a single cell
so they can kind of
grow apart from each other when you
transplant them so it means
transplanting less
and growing more there's a real win-win
so you can do it for things
such as radish you can also do it for a
lot of your root veg
beetroot is excellent for more too
saying you can even do it for things
like leeks
or spinach all of that so i'm just gonna
put a nice decent load
into my hand and then because i'm
multi-sewing
i'm going to aim for around four to six
seeds
per module but if i put a little bit
more i don't mind i'm just going to
crack on
i don't ever try and do this perfectly
it doesn't need to be done
so just kind of go along
making sure that i'm filling them up
like that these are all sewn
i'm just going to grab a load of compost
again
and just spread it over the top it's
such an easy way
of filling it like that now you can
press
just very gently down just like that
not too hard though now that the seeds
have been done and then the next thing
to do
before you forget is to label because
very easy to uh think that you'll
remember i've done it too many times
and then end up forgetting what you've
planted so here i'm gonna i'm gonna
write radish
and i'm also gonna write the date just
as a nice reminder
and that this i'm actually using um
i like to use yogurt pots and and cut
them down
as my seed labels i never buy seed
labels these work an
absolute dream and i've got a video
that'll be linked in the description
which will show you just how easy they
are to do so i'll put that in
and then the final thing to do is just
to give it
a really quick water it's already had a
deep water but i'm just going to give it
a nice shallow water just to make sure
that the surface
is nicely watered after sowing your
seeds the next thing to think about
is where are you actually going to put
your modules now
what i love to use and this is what i'd
recommend
is some kind of shelving system a tiered
shelving system
that has mesh so it isn't like flat
isn't like solid wood it has mesh
because you want air to be
underneath now the great thing about
these container-wise
modules is that there's a big gap
underneath which
naturally prunes the roots of your
seedlings
which stops them spiring spiraling
around
and becoming root bound and it helps to
encourage
a strong root growth so what you do
is make sure this is actually just a
simple mini greenhouse kit
i've got patreon video talking in more
detail about root pruning
and using these mini green houses but
you can just stack them
and store them here now before
i talk about the last few things i just
want to give you a really helpful tip
which is after you've sewn your seeds
you don't want this to dry out because
it is crucial
that during the seeds germination
process
it doesn't dry out so for example if you
have sporadic germination of say carrots
or parsnips outside and i'll be doing a
master class
on direct sewing chances are it's a
sporadic germination
because the soil dried out and you want
to avoid that
so i've got a really easy method of
doing that and it costs
nothing so this is some cardboard
all right super simple and what i do
is i'll actually take off the label and
i'll place
the cardboard on top like that and the
idea
is is this almost acts like a mulch what
it does is it stops
water from evaporating so it means you
don't have to worry about these drying
out during really hot days
so the next thing i'll do is i'll grab
kind of
some stones four stones
on either side just to make sure it's
all covered over kind of like that where
you put a heavier one in the middle
and then finally put
your label under stone so it doesn't
blow away
or you could even write on it or hide
the label underneath it's up to you and
then what you do
is after a few days you start checking
underneath
daily and as soon as you see the first
signs of growth
then you remove this and it means that
the seeds have
will germinate really nicely for you and
there'll be a separate video all about
seedling care
so you don't have to worry too much
about what do i do when that happens so
that's just a really simple thing you
can do
you can also use newspaper
so here's just a very quick
demonstration with the deep module tray
same again just pile the compost on top
and you can see how having something
like this helps keep it
all of the compost around the same area
push it down
so kind of away and down like that
and then push it in i'm going to do the
same
just to top it off at the top and then
i'm just going to go
push it down the next thing to do is
give it a really nice soaking
and then leave it aside for around
five to ten minutes next thing to do is
just to make the hole so i'm going to be
sewing some
filled beans which just like fava beans
or broad beans
so i want them around two inches
or five centimeters deep so again you
can use a couple of fingers like that
you can get it done in half the time
so i made the holes now we're going to
get the seeds
so you just drop it in like that to
begin with
now with beans you may feel that they
don't get all the way down the hole so
you can just
help them on by just pushing them down
to the base
afterwards
so that's all done last few things to do
is suggest cover over the holes like
that
i'll give it another surface water
and then don't forget to label
so that's basically the basics to module
sewing
and how simple it is as a process there
really isn't actually that much to it
i think a lot of things get over
complicated so i just thought i'd show
you
a really simple method to doing it now
if you want to review anything
you can use the chapters in the video
just to go back and have a look
there'll also be some top tips in the
video description so you can read
through those and just to let you know
this is
the first start in the series of just
kind of basic sewing and growing things
but in terms of more
master classes so just trying to get
into as much detail as needed i'm not
trying to put too much
information on you in one go instead i'm
going to spread it out
over a series of videos so for example
ones that are coming up are going to be
seedling care so how to look after your
seedlings
transplanting direct sowing things like
that
just to really help you as the season
progresses
so i look forward to seeing you again
soon and happy growing on
this beautiful start to this new growing
season